LITERARY REMAINS OF REV. DR. ELOY. 



OCCASIONAL SERMONS, 

AM) 

REVIEWS Am ESSAYS. 



By Key. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 




5f t tt) $1 r k : 

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

200 MTJLBEBRY-STREET. 

1866. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 




PREFACE. 



Soon after the decease of the lamented author of 
the following pages, his papers and literary remains 
were put into the hands of the writer for examina- 
tion and decision as to the use to be made of them. 
The papers were generally in good order, but as they 
had not been prepared for publication by their 
author, they were found for the most part unavaila- 
ble for that purpose. It was Dr. Floy's habit to 
write only as occasions required, either for the press 
or the pulpit ; and though he wrote much for the 
latter, very few of his sermons were written out in 
full. A large amount of carefully prepared outlines 
are among his manuscripts ; but though, to such as 
were favored with hearing the full discourses, these 
would help to recall the pleasure experienced when 
they were listened to, to all others, on account of 
their fragmentary character, they would be compara- 
tively of little worth. 

Had it been within the range of the plan of these 
volumes, there is no doubt that these skeleton outlines 



4 PREFACE. 

might have been rendered useful to a class of readers 
as models and studies for sermons. They possess in 
an unusual degree the properties of unity and com- 
pleteness, and ure at once comprehensive and perspic- 
uous. In looking upon them one cannot but regret 
that so much real value must die with the hand and 
head and heart that produced them. Could only 
these outlines be filled up as their author was accus- 
tomed to do it in the pulpit, the world would not let 
them die. 

The specimens of Old Testament biography, now 
presented to the public in a complete volume, were 
prepared by their author and delivered from his pul- 
pit in the form of lectures — chiefly on Sabbath even- 
ings. To their preparation he devoted a large share 
of patient labor and research. These lectures were 
carefully and accurately written out, and the form in 
which they are here given is almost precisely the 
same with that in which he left them. Their design, 
as will be readily seen, is something higher than sim- 
ply to give interest to the subject. Their author's 
notions of the sanctity of the sacred word, and of the 
duty of the pulpit, impelled him in delineating the 
characters of the older dispensation to set forth and 
enforce the doctrines and duties of the new. These 
sketches, though made with too high a reverence for 
divine truth to allow them to be adorned with merely 



PREFACE. 5 

imaginative beauties, are nevertheless beautiful for 
their simplicity, their truthfulness, and their evident 
naturalness. In reading them we are brought into 
communion with those worthies of the olden times, 
but less in their external surroundings than in their 
interior spirit, and especially in regard to their rela- 
tions to those great religious verities to transmit 
which to us is the great purpose of the Bible. In 
giving these to the public, the editor has had little 
more to do than to dispose them in their order and 
see them passed through the press. Though unpre- 
tending in form, and without any of those startling 
novelties of style and composition by which a tran- 
sient popularity is sometimes gained, it is believed that 
this volume will be favorably received by an appre- 
ciating public, and that, wherever used, it will afford 
both profit and pleasure. If it shall tend to create a 
stronger love for the sacred Scriptures, it is quite 
certain that nothing would better accord with the 
spirit in which it was written. 

The sermons here given were for the most part 
prepared for particular occasions. Only that class of 
his discourses were usually written out by their 
author, and hence in preparing to give specimens of 
his sermons, the editor was shut up to that class of 
discourses. As occasional sermons, no apology is 
needed for them ; and as expositions and defenses of 



6 PREFACE. 

their author's convictions upon great and vital ques- 
tions, they are highly valuable. They, however, fail 
properly to characterize their author's general style 
of pulpit discussions, which was eminently evangel- 
ical in matter, and direct and ardent in manner. It 
is matter of much regret with his surviving friends, 
that so many of the pungent and earnest discourses 
that gave character to his ministry are now entirely 
beyond recovery. They are found in outlines among 
his manuscripts, but only his own heart and hand 
could possibly present them in their original power 
and excellence. 

The Reviews and Essays here given have been se- 
lected from those published at various times during 
their author's lifetime. They are given as specimens 
of his methods of thinking and writing, and also as 
possessing such intrinsic value as justifies their pres- 
ervation in this permanent form. Those selected are 
perhaps neither better nor worse than many others 
that might have been chosen ; but it is believed they 
will be found to possess such qualities of purity of 
style, elevation of thought, and wholesomeness of 
moral and religious sentiment, as will commend them 
to the approval of all those whose approbation would 
have been coveted by him who wrote them. Others 
of this class of his productions, differing somewhat in 
style from any of these, would have been presented 



PREFACE. 7 

but for the narrow limits necessarily assigned to this 
department of these volumes. As it is, little more 
than specimens of various subjects and styles could 
be inserted, 

While occupied with his sad and yet grateful duty, 
the editor has been impressed with the evidence of 
the simple and unhesitating nature of the faith of his 
author, as displayed in his literary remains. Doubts 
and painful misgivings are sometimes spoken of as 
the necessary exercises of thoughtful minds occupied 
with the great truths of religion. But to that rule, 
if a rule it is, Dr. Floy was evidently an exception. 
The faith that was taught him at his mother's knee, 
and wrought into his spirit with the lessons of child- 
hood, seems never to have failed him. He was a free- 
thinker without skepticism, a bold inquirer without 
profanity in either thought or feeling. He was ac- 
cordingly prepared to accept in their simple truthful- 
ness the narratives of the Old Testament, to defend 
the plenary inspiration of the sacred volume, and to 
defend the supernatural character of the work of the 
Spirit in the human heart. Others may affect wis- 
dom in these things ; he was content to be as a little 
child in them. 

Very often, too, has the editor found cause to regret 
that one so capable of lasting usefulness in that depart- 
ment had not devoted himself more largely to author- 



8 PREFACE. 

ship. In his culture, learning, and aptitude for writing, 
he possessed all the requisites for a successful author; 
while his power of mental analysis, fruitfulness of 
ideas, and force of argumentation, would have sup- 
plied the needed matter. What is here given are 
only occasional effusions ; valuable and often striking, 
but always less elaborate and profound than their 
author was capable of producing. With the abilities 
indicated in these occasional pieces steadily and earn- 
estly devoted to the higher walks of literary life, his 
eminent success would have been not at all doubt- 
ful, and the world would have been enriched by what 
would have been written. These specimens of our 
author's productions are presented in this form with 
a dedication rather to surviving friends and admirers 
than to the great public ; not, however, because those 
only can profit by them, nor that the criticism of these 
need be especially feared. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

MEMOIR 11 

SERMONS: 

L Halleluiah 41 

II. Manly Yietues 56 

III. God's Sovereignty in Judgment 79 

IY. God's Yineyard 96 

Y. National Sins 117 

VI. The American Citizen 131 

VII. Coyetousness is Idolatry 148 

VIII. The Divinity of Christ 164 

IX. Republicanism of Christianity 186 

X. The Judgment Register 204 

XI. Resurrection of Christ 225 

Prayer for Others 236 

REVIEWS AND ESSAYS: 

Edward Payson, D.D 239 

Homiletics 260 

White field and the Great Awakening 292 

Theopneusty , 328 

English Synonyms 379 

Howitt's British Poets 397 

Pilgarlique's Pilgrimage 436 



MEMOIRS 

OF 

EEV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 



The examples of good men never perish. They 
are as imperishable as the minds they impress, and 
as enduring as the events and interests they influence. 
The flight of time may leave them far in the rear of 
us, and the affairs of later generations, may intercept 
them from our sight ; but their influence still lives, 
and is a thing of beauty and power in the moral 
world. The waters that filled the channel of our 
noble Hudson, when he whose name it bears first 
looked upon its silver sheen, probably form no part 
of its tide to-day. Yet but for the current of that 
period the beautiful harbor and the commercial me- 
tropolis of the present time could have had no exist- 
ence. Similar to this is the relation of former gener- 
ations of Christians to the present Church of Christ, 
and so real is our responsibility to the future of 
Christ's kingdom. No man, and eminently no Chris- 
tian minister, " liveth to himself." The example we 
have now to contemplate was not only for its own time ; 
it will send its influence onward to the end of time. 

James, son of Michael and Margaret Floy, was 



12 MEMOIKS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

born in the city of New York, on Broadway, near 
Astor Place, August 20th, 1806. His father was an 
Englishman, from near Exeter, Devonshire, whence 
he emigrated to New York when a young man, and 
where remnants of the original stock of which he 
came are still found. It is known that the family 
had resided in that place for several generations pre- 
vious to him who brought the name to this country, 
where they were substantial persons of the middle 
class of society ; but its origin is involved in obscur- 
ity. One tradition derives the family from Wales, 
and identifies it with the Lloyds or Floyds ; another 
traces it to a French origin, making the ancient form 
of the name Floyer. Both these, however, are but 
conjectures, and all that is really known of the family 
presents them to us as purely English. Michael 
Floy was married in New York, December 8th, 1802, 
to Miss Margaret Ferris. In conformity to the tra- 
ditions of his youth, he became an attendant upon 
the services of the Protestant Episcopal Church of St. 
Mark's, Stuyvesant-street. His wife became, in early 
life, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and a devout Christian, worshiping with the little 
congregation in the neighborhood then known as 
Bowery Village. A few years later his own religious 
life was greatly quickened, when, following the exam- 
ple of his pious companion, he too became a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and their family, 
of which the subject of this sketch was the oldest, 
thus received their religious training chiefly in con- 
nection with the Methodist communion. He lived 
to see all his children grown to mature life and be- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 13 

come useful members of the Church and of general 
society. 

Though in only moderate pecuniary circumstances, 
Mr. Floy wisely resolved to give his children the ad- 
vantages of a thorough school education, and accord- 
ingly James was sent to the best schools in the city, 
and in due time he was entered as a regular student 
in Columbia College. Here he made good proficiency, 
and he is still remembered by his surviving class- 
mates for his aptitude for English composition. But 
his father, though a man of unusual intelligence and 
of much reading, was affected with the not uncommon 
prejudice of non -professional men in favor of a more 
" practical" form of education than that of the college, 
and so withdrew him from his course before gradua- 
tion, and sent him to England to study and practice 
horticulture at the Royal Gardens, London. After 
more than a year's absence he returned, and remained 
for several years with his father, who himself was a 
practical horticulturist. 

In 1829, James was married to Miss Jane Thacker. 
His manner of life during this period was quiet and un- 
ambitious ; and he seems not to have marked out for 
himself any definite line of action till his conversion 
gave a new and more elevated direction to his aims and 
purposes. That great event occurred in connection 
with special religious services in the Allen-street Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and the great transition, as re- 
corded by himself, took place oh the 13th of February, 
1831, when he was a little over twenty-four years old. 

The change wrought in his mind by his religious 
experience was marked, and immediately productive 



14 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

of appropriate results. He now devoted his leisure 
time to religious reading. " I Lad an impression," 
he writes in a brief memoir found among his papers, 
" from my childhood, that I should be a preacher." 
His new religious life seems to have quickened that 
impression and given it increased power, and accord- 
ingly his thoughts and studies were turned in that 
direction. "While thus occupied, looking to future 
action in the service of God and his cause, he was 
also actively engaged in the work that lay next at 
hand. "I engaged," he tells us further, "as a 
teacher in the African Sunday-school in Elizabeth- 
street, near Bleecker, and was also appointed a class- 
leader in the Bowery Tillage Chjirch. It was my 
custom," he continues, " after having been elected 
superintendent of the school, to give the scholars, 
most of whom were adults and professors of religion, 
an address on some religious subject; and thus I 
acquired a habit of speaking publicly on religious 
topics." This was his special theological and minis- 
terial training, and his subsequent ministry indicated 
its character and excellence. From this humble but 
excellent discipline preparatory to his great work, 
the transition to the work of the ministry was natural 
and in some sense necessary, as his further narrative 
shows. The beginning of his formal ministry was in 
this wise, as stated by himself : 

" On the evening of Sunday, February 17th, 1833, 
I preached in that house [the African school-room] 
to a crowded congregation, it having been announced 
that Mr. Floy, the superintendent of the school, 
would preach. I had no license or authority at that 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 15 

time, and, indeed, as I remember, no Hack coat. My 
^text was Exodus xiv, 15, " Speak to the children of 
Israel that they go forward," and I had great liberty. 
Most of the teachers were there, and my father and 
brother were in the back part of the house, but com- 
pletely out of my sight." Of the peculiar heart- 
struggles that accompanied his advance thus far 
toward his great life-work only slight intimations are 
given ; for it was his fault, though one nearly akin to 
a virtue, to speak but sparingly of his personal relig- 
ious exercises. It is quite evident, however, that his 
progress was not made without deep and pungent 
emotions of soul. " A few weeks after this," he con- 
tinues, " I tried again in the old Forsyth-street 
Church, by request of Eev. ~D. Ostrander, then in 
charge. I had a most lamentable time, and was ex- 
ceedingly mortified at what I deemed an utter failure, 
and resolved never to try again, gathering assuredly 
that God had not called me to the ministry." 

The experience of the young preacher in these two 
cases agrees very fully with that of many others in 
like cases, and we think there is ground to believe 
that such experiences are not merely accidental but 
specially providential. The liberty given at the first 
is needful to sustain and encourage the heart at the 
first great attempt ; the subsequent failure is equally 
useful to teach humility and to give a due sense of 
dependence upon the Divine Spirit. Nor, where the 
call to the ministry is genuine, do such failures per- 
manently satisfy that the first impression was wrong, 
but quite otherwise. Accordingly, shortly afterward 
he adds, " My impressions, however, seemed to deepen 

9 



16 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

that I ought to preach." The Church also recognized 
the divine character of his calling, and granted hin^ 
a local preacher's license, and he continued preaching 
chiefly in the Almshouse, City Prison, and House of 
Eefuge. The whole record clearly shows that with 
him the ministry was not merely a chosen profession, 
but that he entered upon it under a deep sense of 
religious duty. The impression of this duty had fol- 
lowed him from his childhood ; after his conversion 
it increased upon him, and having made trial of the 
work, notwithstanding what seemed to himself " utter 
failure," his impressions deepened that he ought to 
preach. Evidently all this was of the movings of the 
Holy Spirit. 

This view of his case was very generally enter- 
tained by the Church with which he was associated, 
and accordingly he was licensed to preach by the 
official body having cognizance of such matters, and 
also recommended to the Annual Conference as a suit- 
able person to be received by that body as a traveling 
minister. The Annual Conference, having heard of 
his life and character, was also satisfied that he was 
called of God to the work of the ministry. He was 
received on trial as a traveling preacher by the New 
York Conference, at its session in May, 1835. His 
first appointment was in charge of a small Church 
and society at Eiverhead, on Long Island. For a 
young minister just commencing his great work 
the position was a peculiarly difficult one; the 
society was small and not specially active, and all 
the circumstances were of a nature to chill rather 
than to inflame his zeal. He had no ministerial asso- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 17 

ciate at hand to counsel or to sympathize with him, 
and beginning with a very small stock of preaching 
matter on hand, he was compelled to preach twice or 
three times a week to the same congregation. The 
result of the year's labor, which he speaks of as pe- 
culiarly a hard one, is thus briefly, and almost sor- 
rowfully summed up by him : " They gave me credit 
for driving one man crazy, and one young woman 
professed to be converted by my ministry." 

In the economy of Methodism room is always 
allowed for hope, when present affairs are most un- 
hopeful. So our young itinerant was enabled to 
endure in hope, till the next session of his conference 
brought him relief. His second appointment was to 
Hempstead circuit, with Kev. Joseph Law for his 
senior. He described the year spent in that appoint- 
ment as very prosperous, and many souls were con- 
verted. He was accustomed to speak of this year as 
among the most successful in his ministry ; his col- 
league, too, was accustomed to speak of it as a time 
of great religious power. He remained there but one 
year. In the spring of 1837 he was appointed junior 
preacher on what was then known as the Harlem 
Mission, embracing all the Churches on New York 
island northward from and including Twenty-seventh, 
street Church. Here he remained two years, having 
Rev. D. De Yinne for his senior the former year and 
Rev. J. Tackaberry the latter. Both years were 
seasons of most encouraging revivals. 

During the former of these years an event occurred 

which grew into a great matter, causing no little 

present difficulty to our young itinerant, and probably 

2 



18 MEMOIKS OF KEY. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

largely influencing his after life. For some years 
the antislavery agitation had convulsed society and 
seriously affected the peace of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. The leading men of that body had 
with great unanimity taken strong ground against 
what was known as the abolition movement. The 
General Conference of 1836 had condemned it, and 
in its pastoral address to the whole Church had ex- 
horted all Methodists to " wholly abstain " from any 
connection or co-operation with that movement. Mr. 
Floy, on the contrary, decidedly sympathized with it, 
and during the year 1837, with several other mem- 
bers of the New York Conference, he attended an 
antislavery convention at Utica. For this* they were 
arraigned at the ensuing session of their conference, 
under a charge of " contumacy and insubordination," 
in disobeying the injunction of the General Confer- 
ence. Matters seem to have been carried with a 
pretty high hand by the ruling majority ; the recu- 
sant members were required to pledge themselves to 
offend no more in the premises, under pain of depo- 
sition from the ministry. Mr. Floy's case was one of 
peculiar difficulty. His convictions respecting the 
iniquity of American slavery were deep and conscien- 
tiously cherished. At the same time he cherished 
beyond any earthly consideration his Church relations 
and the ministry to which the Holy Ghost had called 
him. Having been brought to trial for his alleged 
" contumacy " before a committee composed of some 
of the most venerable names of the New York Con- 
ference of that day, every one of whom was his op- 
ponent on the question at issue, he conducted his 



MEMOIRS OF KEY. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 19 

defense in person, and though he failed to gain his 
suit, he did what was better, he vindicated his cause 
before the Conference, and fixed the seeds of convic- 
tion in many minds that the sufferer rather than the 
persecutors had the better cause. 

His address before the Conference in his defense 
was admitted on all hands to be able and most effect- 
ive. From an outline of it found among his papers, 
as well as from the oral testimony of some that 
heard it, it is evident that it was at once skillfully 
constructed and ably argued. He began by confess- 
ing the great anxiety the case had given him ; that 
he saw his reputation was in jeopardy, and only his 
conscious integrity in the matter was left to sustain 
him. As a ground of defense, he claimed that in what 
he had done he stood alone, and was responsible for 
nothing that others may have said or done ; that he 
had violated no rule of the Discipline, nor yet the 
instructions of the General Conference ; that if there 
appeared such violation in form, the absence of any 
design to be contumacious and insubordinate should 
avail in his favor. At the close of his elaborate de- 
fense, which occupied three hours in its delivery, he 
submitted his case, sadly and solemnly saying to his 
listening and greatly moved auditors and judges, 
" Now I leave my case in your hands. The passage 
of the resolution (to annul his ordination as deacon) 
seals my ministry. I never sought that ministry ; it 
sought me. You may seal my lips, but you cannot 
prevent my prayers for the prosperity of the cause of 
Christ, and for the perpetuity of the cause of Meth- 
odism." At the end of the outline referred to is 



20 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

this note : * They most unrighteously found me 
guilty, and deprived me of my deacon's orders until 
I should give satisfaction to the Conference." That 
the proceedings had been high-handed and unwar- 
ranted, seems to have been felt almost immediately. 
He was accordingly urged by some of those who had 
voted to condemn him to state in writing what he 
had said in his plea as to his purpose for the future, 
and it would be sufficient. This he, a day or two 
after, consented to do, and it was accepted as satis- 
factory, and the sentence of suspension removed. 

That this whole action was wrong is now very 
manifest ; the public verdict has so determined. 
Probably it was felt to be so by all the parties to the 
sad transaction. The whole aspect of the confer- 
ence during the proceedings is described by an eye- 
witness as funereal. Ministers of hitherto unblem- 
ished reputations, and some of them of conspicuous 
positions, were arraigned and tried before their peers 
for acts which not even their accusers accounted im- 
moral, and suspended from the ministry for doing 
what very many believed was nearer right than 
wrong. A strange infatuation ruled the public 
mind, and impelled good men to act most unright- 
eously. Mr. Floy's defense, by its ability, calmness, 
and yet evident sadness, operated powerfully upon 
all present, and it became the salient point of his 
subsequent rise to reputation and influence. His 
antagonists had achieved a victory ; but it was only 
less disastrous, if at all so, than a defeat. It was 
certainly the epoch from which the influence of the 
chief actors in the business steadily and rapidly de- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 21 

clined ; and not many years afterward, the Confer- 
ence acquitted itself of the whole business. Mr. 
Floy faithfully kept the pledge made to the confer- 
ence till that body itself came over to his ground, 
though all the time he was known and recognized 
as a consistent abolitionist. But it is quite cer- 
tain that he wore it as a fetter upon his soul, a 
badge of his own enslavement, and a memento of a 
great wrong. 

At the Conference of 1839, Mr. Floy was appointed 
to the charge of the Kortright Circuit, Delaware 
county, N. T. He immediately repaired to his work, 
leaving his family in New York, and made the tour 
of the circuit. Returning for his family, he found 
his wife so much prostrated by sickness, from which 
she had long been a sufferer, that it was deemed im- 
possible to remove her. This at first detained him 
from his work, and at length led to his asking and 
receiving a release from his appointment. Soon after 
the Washington-street Church, in Brooklyn, being 
without a minister, he accepted an invitation from 
the official members to occupy their pulpit until the 
ensuing conference. At the next session of the con- 
ference he was regularly appointed to that Church, 
where he continued two years longer. 

Mr. Floy's ministry at Washington-street Church, 
Brooklyn, though not blessed with any extensive 
revival, resulting in large ingatherings of converts, 
was nevertheless eminently successful. The Church, 
which had suffered greatly from internal difficulties, 
became harmonized and consolidated, and a consider- 
able number of valuable members were received, 



22 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

His preaching was also highly appreciated, and his 
reputation as an able and eminently instructive 
preacher became established. For many years after- 
ward his name was often mentioned among them 
with peculiar reverence and affection. More than 
one of the sermons printed in this volume were pre- 
pared for and delivered to that congregation. 

From Brooklyn, in May, 1842, Mr. Floy was ap- 
pointed to the charge of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church at Danbury, Connecticut. His two years at 
that Church constituted the transition period in the 
history of Methodism in that place. The Church 
was visited by a gracious and powerful revival, in 
which about eighty persons, chiefly young men, were 
brought within its folds. Mr. Floy was accustomed 
to refer to this period of his ministry with marked 
satisfaction. 

The session of the New York Conference for 1844 
was held at Sands-street Church, Brooklyn. Bishop 
Hedding presided, and Mr. Floy was then first made 
chief secretary. This session took place immediately 
after the close of the General Conference which had 
passed the famous " Plan of Separation," which now 
came up at this conference for approval. Mr. Floy 
was among the small minority that opposed it. He 
clearly perceived the unconstitutional and oppressive 
character of that measure, and predicted the deplor- 
able results that have arisen from it. As usual, he 
was before his times ; but not very far ahead just 
then, for only three years later his conference elected 
him a delegate to the .General Conference on that 
very issue. And he had the satisfaction of seeing 



MEMOIES OF KEY. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 23 

the nefarious " Plan " abrogated by the next General 
Conference, and of aiding in the work. At the 
close of that conference he was sent to Madison- 
street Church, New York city, where he remained 
two years. His services at that Church were very 
highly appreciated ; they were also successful in 
consolidating a new congregation, and to a mod- 
erate extent in the conversion of souls. Many 
marked indications of the high estimation in which 
he was held by the people of that charge were given 
him. 

His next appointment, for two years, was to Mid- 
dletown, Conn. At the Conference of 1847, held in 
Allen-street Church, New York, the delegates to the 
General Conference to be held in Pittsburgh in May, 
1848, were chosen. The Church was at that time 
much agitated respecting the course to be pursued 
relative to the division of the Church, as provided 
for by the former General Conference, and afterward 
carried out by the secession of the southern confer- 
ences. On this issue the election of delegates was 
made, by which some of the prescriptive leaders of 
the body were left out, and a number of new men 
chosen. Of these was Mr. Floy, who was elected on 
the first ballot by a decided majority. He attended 
the General Conference of 1848, of which he was a 
diligent and effective, rather than a showy member. 
It was on his motion that a committee to revise the 
hymn book of the Church was appointed, of which 
he was made a member, and became the chief actor 
in the work designated. 

From the New York Conference of 1848, Mr. Floy 



24 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

was sent to the First Methodist Episcopal Church at 
New Haven. The conference having been divided 
by the late General Conference, the separation to 
take place at the close of this session of the New 
York Conference, he became a member of the New 
York East Conference. At the commencement of 
the Wesleyan University for that year h6 received, 
without solicitation, the honorary degree of Doctor 
of Divinity. During his residence at New Haven, 
he was much engaged upon the hymn book, the work 
of revising which had been specially committed to 
him and Mr. E. A. West, but was chiefly performed 
by himself. The next two years, from May 1850 to 
May 1852 he was a second time at the Madison- 
street Church, New York city. 

The agitation of the slavery question at this period 
could not fail to affect one of such decided convic- 
tions upon that subject, and as matters then stood, to 
cause him trouble. The infamous Fugitive Slave 
Law had been passed by Congress, and the whole 
power of both the State ancLthe Church appeared to 
be engaged to induce the people to support it. This, 
though he was eminently a loyal and law-abiding 
citizen, he could not do, but quietly, though most 
decidedly, he denounced its iniquity. 

At the election of delegates to the General Con- 
ference of 1852 he therefore failed to be chosen, 
lacking, however, only a few votes of a majority. 
The strong pro-slavery reaction of the period so 
largely affected the conference that so decided an 
enemy to slavery could not command their suffrages. 
It was, however, only a transient withdrawal of con- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 25 

fidence, which, was very soon returned with increased 
earnestness of devotion. From the conference of 
1852 he was sent to the Twenty-seventh-street 
Church, New York, where he continued two years, 
laboring diligently and with a good degree of success. 
Of all the ministers who have had the privilege of 
serving that excellent Church and congregation, none 
continue to be remembered more "gratefully or named 
more reverently than Dr. Floy. 

In 1854 he was appointed presiding elder of New 
York District, New York East Conference, which 
office he filled for two years. He was a delegate to 
the General Conference of 1856, held at Indianapolis, 
and participated freely in its doings. By that body 
he was elected Editor of the National Magazine, and 
Corresponding Secretary of the Tract Society, in 
which office he was occupied during the ensuing four 
years. In 1860 he was a delegate to the General 
Conference at Buffalo, and aided in placing the Dis- 
cipline of the Church upon its broad antisla very basis. 
At its close he returned to the regular pastoral work, 
and while without an appointment between the ses- 
sion of the General Conference of 1860 and the New 
York East Conference of 1861, he occupied his time 
in preparing a series of Sunday-school Question 
Books. In 1861 he was appointed to Seventh-street, 
New York, and in 1863 to Beekman Hill, (Fiftieth- 
street,) New York. Here, on the 14th day of Octo- 
ber, 1863, in his fifty-eighth year, he ceased at once 
to work and live. 

From this sketch of the itinerant life of Dr. Floy, 
which it was thought best to present in a continuous 



26 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

narrative, we now pass to more general remarks and 
reflections. We have first to notice the influences 
under which he devoted himself to the ministry of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. To such a one as 
he was at that time the world presented strong in- 
ducements and large promises of success in either 
professional or business life. Or if the ministry was 
to be chosen, other denominations, and especially that 
one which was properly his hereditary Church, the 
Episcopalian, offered much greater worldly induce- 
ments. His own account of the case, however, shows 
that in choosing the ministerial calling, and that too 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he was actuated 
by a controlling conscientiousness. He became a 
Methodist itinerant minister because he believed God 
called him to that work, and he dared not " reason 
with flesh and blood," and, therefore, he " was not 
disobedient to the heavenly vision." This fidelity 
to his convictions was characteristic of the man, and 
it became in his after life the occasion of both his 
troubles and his successes. It also distinguished his 
religious character and life, the former of which was 
eminently free from hypocrisy, and the latter from 
cant. His religion was much more matter of con- 
viction than of sentiment ; and though often deeply 
emotional, yet he habitually suppressed and concealed 
his religious feelings, while he steadily pursued the 
way of duty. That he carried this excellence too far 
may be suspected ; and his manner in that thing, 
though it commands our admiration, cannot be en- 
tirely commended. The tendencies of the times are 
doubtless to too much reserve in religious profession ; 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 27 

and Dr. Floy both yielded to that influence himself, 
and by his example gave it more authority. 

'Next to his rigid conscientiousness, the peculiar 
form of his intellect gave fashion to his mind and 
course of life. The natural characteristics of his 
intellect were manliness, vigor, and activity. He 
confronted the truth bravely, and grappled with it 
vigorously, and from the intuitive unrest of the soul 
within him he was impelled forward in intellectual 
activities. Incidental advantages came in to second 
and forward these natural tendencies. Both his 
home education and his early school discipline con- 
curred with the native cast of his mind, and intensi- 
fied its original impulses. His school training gave 
him the peculiar culture that ever distinguished all 
the productions of his mind. Though a man of ex- 
tensive knowledge, he was educated rather than 
learned — more distinguished for a scholarly culture 
than for a cyclopedian range of information. Hence 
he became by necessity a critic. The whole domain 
of the esthetic was his playground, in which his 
tastes, whether discriminative or appreciative, found 
full room for action. The meretricious, the tawdry, 
the incongruous, were detected with the clearness of 
sunlight, and condemned with a corresponding deci- 
siveness ; while those excellences which only a culti- 
vated taste can recognize were as surely seen and duly 
appreciated. 

With a mind so constituted and furnished, Dr. 
Floy became a writer by a kind of necessity. There 
were thoughts in his mind that sought for utterance, 
and he possessed in a large degree the powers needful 



28 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

for their expression ; while the Methodist denomina- 
tional press, then becoming a power in the Church 
and the world, offered opportunities for their promul- 
gation. Those facts no doubt determined his position 
as a literary man. He was a writer for the periodi- 
cal press rather than an author of books. 

As a writer, Dr. Floy is best known by his contri- 
butions to the pages of the Methodist Quarterly 
Review, extending over a period of nearly a quarter 
of a century. In the number for April, 1838, is 
found an essay from his pen, entitled " The Judgment 
Register," which, though his first effort in so wide a 
field, demonstrates his mastery in the art of essay 
writing at that period. That essay was afterward 
changed into the form of a sermon, and so appears 
among his published literary remains. It has indeed 
all the peculiarities for which he afterward became 
renowned — a thorough mastery of his theme, clear- 
ness and comprehensiveness of views, and the facility 
of utterance, in pure, simple, and not inelegant En- 
glish, which induced a competent judge in such mat- 
ters to declare that he never wrote a sentence of bad 
English in his lifetime. A few years later, when the 
Quarterly, under the editorship of Dr. Peck, had 
assumed an advanced position among the first of its 
class, a review of Dr. Porter's " Lectures on Homi- 
letics and Preaching " — which was, however, rather 
an elaborate essay on that subject — appeared in its 
pages, and attracted much attention. It appeared 
anonymously, and, of course, was judged without 
favor or prejudice from its authorship, and he had 
the satisfaction of hearing it warmly commended by 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 29 

those whose approval lie most valued, and also some 
who might have been more chary of their praises had 
its authorship been known. 

From that time Dr. Floy's articles became a dis- 
tinguishing feature of the Methodist Quarterly, and 
they, quite as largely as those of any other writer, 
contributed to the standing to which it has attained. 
Their subjects are various ; and while each is marked 
by its own individuality, they all bear unmistakable 
marks of their common origin. 

As an essayist and reviewer, Dr. Floy was always 
conscientious and faithful to his own convictions of 
right. On doctrinal points he uniformly maintained 
his own opinions, which were highly orthodox and 
evangelical, in opposition to the evident tendencies of 
the great mass of the educated minds of the age. 
His convictions as to human rights and the sin and 
wrong of oppression not only cropped out occasion- 
ally in his writings, but were prominently brought 
out with all clearness and energy of utterance. And 
yet he delighted in the beautiful — the quiet pleasures 
of a cultivated taste — and some of his best pieces are 
chiefly exercises in the esthetics of literature. 

Probably no other department of Church-work 
was more highly valued by Dr. Floy than that of the 
department of Sabbath-schools. His career as a re- 
ligious instructor began in the Sabbath-school, and 
the last labor he performed — on the day of his 
decease — was to add a chapter to a Sabbath-school 
instruction book that he was preparing. Among his 
literary remains are found lectures, sermons, and 
addresses in behalf of the cause ; and of the few 



30 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

books that bear his name on their title-page, nearly 
all are for the use of Sabbath-schools. His friends, 
with good cause, regret that he never devoted him- 
self to authorship, being quite certain that he would 
not have failed of eminent success, and so would 
have made the world his perpetual debtor. 

Dr. Floy's great literary work, which is indeed his 
best monument, is the hymn book of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. His attention was early directed 
to the subject of hymnology, and among the oldest 
of his literary remains are a variety of slips from 
newspapers, evidently written by himself, containing 
notes and queries respecting certain hymns, with 
criticisms on their composition. In the Methodist 
Quarterly for April, 1844, appeared a long and elabo- 
rate article from his pen on the Methodist Hymn 
Book, with disquisitions on modern hymnology gen- 
erally, and Methodist hymns in particular. This led 
to further discussions* of the subject in the Church 
papers by himself and others, and a very considera- 
ble interest was awakened on the subject. It was 
very generally conceded that the hymn book then in 
use ought to be thoroughly revised, and its contents 
enriched from exterior sources. Still it seemed to be 
a formidable undertaking to replace by another, how- 
ever excellent, a manual of devotion not only in the 
hands, but to a large extent in the hearts also, of 
more than a million worshipers. The Methodists too, 
as a people, make much of the hymn book. With 
them it largely occupies the place of the prayer-book 
with Episcopalians, and the catechism with Presby- 
terians. The doctrinal teachings of their hymns are 



MEMOIES OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 31 



scarcely less authoritative than those of the Bible ; 
their warnings and exhortations are as effective as 
those of the pulpit ; and to a mind capable of appre- 
ciating their practical adaptation to Christian culture, 
the high estimate set upon those hymns must be am- 
ply justified. Still it was not to be denied that while 
the old hymn book contained a great amount of ex- 
cellent devotional poetry, it was defective both in 
matter and arrangement, and not altogether without 
inaccuracies and improprieties of language and style. 
The asked-for revision was therefore very generally 
conceded as necessary. 

At the General Conference of 1848 Dr. Floy called 
the attention of that body to the subject by asking 
for a committee to consider the question of the re- 
vision of the hymn book. The General Conference 
favored the motion, and the mover was placed on the 
committee, and afterward also on the sub-committee 
appointed to do the designated work.* His associ- 

° The committee were Rev. D, Daily, of Philadelphia; Rev. J. B. 
Alverson, of Rochester; Rev. D. Patten, of Providence ; Rev. F. Mer- 
rick, of Ohio ; Rev. J. Floy, of New York ; Mr. D. Creamer, of Balti- 
more ; and Mr. R. A. West, of Brooklyn. The first two of these, 
though not, classically educated, were both of them men of taste and 
culture, who had devoted much attention to sacred poetry. Of the 
former Dr. Floy wrote : " He was a faithful member of the committee, 
suggested several alterations which were adopted, and wrote verses 
which are among my papers." Of the latter : " He took much inter- 
est in the work." Messrs. Patten and Merrick were both classical 
scholars, and by their tastes and reading especially adapted to the 
work. Mr. Creamer had made Methodist Hymnology the study of his 
lifetime, and he has probably the most nearly complete collection of 
Wesleyan poetry in existence, of the spirit of which he has himself 
drunk deeply. Mr. West was the son of an honored Wesleyan minister, 
and brother to an ex-president of the British Conference, and a foster* 



32 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

ates were from among the ablest and most cultivated, 
whether of the ministry or laity, of the Church. 
The principal work of revisal was devolved upon the 
sub-committee, Messrs. Floy and West ; and the 
greatest part of the work was actually performed by 
Dr. Floy, not, however, without valuable assistance 
from his associates. 

The duty assigned to the committee by the General 
Conference was to revise the old hymn book, but they 
proceeded in fact to make a new one. The plan of 
arrangement was entirely recast, and the matter of 
the old book thrown into the common stock of avail- 
able material. The whole range of sacred poetry in 
the language was laid under contribution, and what- 
ever was deemed of sufficient excellence and adapted 
to the design was freely used. And yet the new book 
is, scarcely less than its predecessor, of Wesley an 
paternity. 

In this work Dr. Floy's critical acumen was largely 
called into exercise. Many of the most celebrated 
sacred poets have "not been remarkable for the accu- 
racy of their language nor the faultlessness of their 
prosody, and the compilers of hymn books have uni- 
versally claimed the right to correct and improve 
their compositions. Of this practice John Wesley 
was an eminent example as to both the freedom and 
the excellence of his emendations ; but he strongly 
protested against any such liberty being taken with 

son of Kingswood School. In addition to these accidental advantages, 
he possessed a fine poetical taste and a large acquaintance with the 
later poetry of Methodism. Two of the hymns in the new hymn book 
are from his pen. 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 33 

his own or his brother's hymns. But the protest has 
been little heeded; sometimes for the worse, often 
for the better. He himself very freely corrected his 
brother's poetry, not only in its form but also in its 
substance, seeking to free it from the mysticisms with 
which the ^riter impregnated much of it, and espe- 
cially to expunge from it certain exceptionable doc- 
trinal notions into which his brother at one time fell. 
Our compilers have carried this work still further, 
and some otherwise valuable hymns have been wholly 
omitted on that account. The productions of others 
were treated with like freedom, and as the result, not 
only is the Church enriched in her hymnology, but 
many bardlings, dead or living, have been brought 
into debt to their critical emendators. And vet there 
may be great danger that a severe but unpoetical 
taste will sacrifice genuine inspiration to the demands 
of grammatical and rhetorical correctness. Probably 
at this point, more than at any other, Dr. Floy lacked 
adaptation to his work. He was not a poet in the 
fullest sense of that word ; and though not destitute 
of poetical susceptibility, yet his tastes led him in 
another direction. He demanded purity and cor- 
rectness, and often no doubt he was tempted to dash 
the flower because of the imperfection of the vase 
that contained it. Hence came the exclusion of some 
really good hymns, excepting only certain infelicities 
of verbiage; while others were emendated in their 
rhetoric at the expense of their poetry. And as the 
result, we have among our hymns a number of rhe- 
torically faultless, but poetically, lifeless so-called 
hymns. 



34 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

Of the amount of learned labor expended upon 
that work, but faint notions are entertained by ordi- 
narily intelligent persons who use it. Every piece 
was examined singly, and its various versions, as found 
in some twenty standard hymn books collated, and 
every stanza and line subjected to a critical adjudica- 
tion, and whenever possible, the original, as written 
by its author, was consulted. Poems of more than 
the allowable length were abbreviated, and in many 
cases rearranged, for the sake of unity and complete- 
ness ; and sometimes two, three, or even more hymns 
were taken from a single poem. The plan of distri- 
bution was designed to present a system of theoretical 
and practical theology, while especial reference was 
had to the demands of public worship, and specifically 
the wants of Methodist congregations. As compared 
with other books of its class, that hymn book is dis- 
tinguished for the purity and perspicuity of its lan- 
guage, the chasteness and congruity of its figures, and 
the faultlessness of its rhythm and rhyme. Doctrin- 
ally it is eminently evangelic, "Wesleyan, Methodist- 
ical ; while its renderings of the holy Scriptures and 
its scriptural allusions are natural, obvious, and read- 
ily intelligible. Under the hand of the revisers some 
of the most impassioned utterances of Charles Wesley 
were softened and moderated, the better to adapt 
them to common use, and some of his peculiar and 
rather erratic doctrinal notions were quietly hidden 
by judicious omissions or substitutions. The stores of 
sacred poetry written during the present century were 
fully drawn upon, and no inconsiderable share of 
these hymns are post-Wesleyan as to their composi- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 35 

tion. The new hymn book was issued during the 
summer of the year 1849, and in a very short _time it 
came into almost universal use in the churches — a 
practical tribute to its, manifest excellence. 

During the later years of Dr. Floy's residence in 
New York he was a member of the Board of Man- 
agers of the American Bible Society. He was chosen 
to that honorable and responsible position as a proper 
representative of his denomination, and for his well 
known discretion and sound judgment as a counselor; 
and he accepted the place and performed its duties 
both from his high estimate of the sacred word, and 
his zeal in all the enterprises of Christian benevo- 
lence. The broad catholicity of principle upon which 
that society was based, and on which it uniformly 
acts was also highly agreeable to his feelings. On 
account of his qualifications both of learning and 
sound judgment, he was placed on the Committee on 
Yersions, to which body some of the most important 
and especially delicate questions in the Society's 
affairs were often referred, and whose determinations 
many times settled the most important measures. 

While he was serving in that capacity the commit- 
tee undertook a thorough examination of the standard 
copies of the English Bible in the authorized version. 
By reason of the numerous editions through which 
that version has passed, many of them but poorly 
edited and very carelessly executed, numerous errors 
had crept into the text. Some of these date from 
the earliest editions issued by royal authority, leaving 
it doubtful what was the form intended by the trans- 
lators. The committee undertook the vast labor of 



36 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

correcting these wherever possible, and so endeavored 
to prepare a copy of the English Bible as nearly cor- 
rect as, in the present state of the case, could be 
made. And as it is a fact now conceded by all schol- 
ars, that in some few cases our version does not ex- 
press the sense of the original, the necessary correc- 
tions in a few cases were attempted ; and as the result, 
a copy of the English Bible unequaled in value by 
any preceding one was prepared. In this work 
Dr. Floy took a lively interest, and to it he lent an 
effective helping hand. The corrected copy thus 
prepared was accepted by the Society and published ; 
but on account of a strong opposition raised against 
it, as an unwarrantable intermeddling with the word 
of God, the edition was suppressed, though the fruits 
of the committee's labors are still used by the Society 
in its English version. While there can be no ques- 
tion as to the- value of the committee's work, and the 
greatly enhanced value of their corrected edition of 
the English Bible, it may still be doubted whether a 
society formed as is the American Bible Society is 
the proper agency for such a work. Many of the 
emendations and editorial corrections made by the 
committee were afterward made available by Dr. 
Floy in the edition of the Holy Scriptures published 
under his supervision by the Methodist Book Concern 
a few years later. 

An important feature of Dr. Floy's life and charac- 
ter would be overlooked should we omit to notice his 
position and influence as a member of his annual con- 
ference. The constitution of those bodies, and the 
work committed to them, very effectively evoke and 



MEMOIRS OF KEY. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 37 

employ the gifts and characteristics of their members ; 
and there, more than in any other place, was his 
power displayed. In the work of examining candi- 
dates he was almost unequaled. To the disqualified 
and pretentions he was a perpetual terror ; while 
latent worth or timid excellence were surely detected, 
assured, and asserted by him. Nearly the whole of 
the junior portion of the ministers of the New York 
East Conference have passed through his hands as an 
examiner, and it may be confidently affirmed that the 
standard of learning and the style of thought to 
which they have as a body attained are in no small 
degree owed to that cause. But in the open delibera- 
tions of the conference was eminently the place of 
his power. Always in his place, and ever watchful 
of the proceedings, nothing that was transacted 
escaped his notice ; and though he often voted silent- 
ly, yet he uniformly had a reason for the vote he 
gave. As a debater he had few equals. He was not 
remarkable for much speaking, either as to the fre- 
quency or the length of his harangues ; but his 
strength lay in the appositeness of his remarks, and 
the evidently honest zeal with which he expressed 
them. Men learned unconsciously to believe in him 
and to act according to his directions. A recognized 
leader in the cause of antislaveryism in the confer- 
ence, he lived to see the great body of the younger 
ministers arrange themselves by his side. But he 
was not so exclusively occupied with that subject as 
to lose himself in it. He was especially interested in 
the protection and elevation of the character of the 
ministry, an active promoter of the cause of denomi- 



38 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

national education, and of all the great charities and 
benevolent enterprises of the Church. In all these 
things the conference felt and acknowledged his 
power, and gladly accepted his leadership. 

Though Dr. Floy's career in the ministry was less 
protracted than that of most who have earned for 
themselves a reputation, it was long enough to show 
that his renown was not derived from qualities that 
do not endure the tests of time and close examination. 
For twenty-eight successive years he performed the 
ministerial labor assigned to him in the order of the 
Church, and always with fidelity and a good degree 
of success. As a preacher he was clear, direct, and 
earnest; in doctrine eminently evangelical, and in 
exhortation pungent and effective. Yet on account 
of the elevation of his thoughts, and the rigid cor- 
rectness of his tastes, which led him to avoid all 
showy ornamentation or attempts at pompous elo- 
quence, he w T as a preacher for the appreciative few 
rather than for the promiscuous multitude. But by 
those he was very highly valued. During the two 
years of his pastorate at Middletown, Dr. Olin was 
one of his constant hearers ; and he afterward declared 
that of all the preachers he had ever known, he would 
choose Dr. Floy for a pastor for himself and his fam- 
ily—a judgment in which not a few can heartily 
concur. 

Though greatly blessed in his household, having 
the support and Christian sympathies of his excellent 
wife, who cheerfully, though at great sacrifice, shared 
with him the labors of an itinerant life, and also see- 
ing his two sons growing up to manhood and develop- 



MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 39 

ing manly and Christian characters, he also knew 
the keenness of domestic sorrow. Mrs. Floy was dur- 
ing a large portion of her lifetime a sufferer from 
impaired health, and during her later years she be- 
came not only a confirmed invalid, but also a subject 
of severe sufferings. For painful and wearisome 
months she was prostrated with weakness and racked 
by the most terrible pains, till at length, worn out 
with disease, she rested in death, some four years pre- 
vious to the decease of her husband. Such a loss at 
his time of life is irreparable. He was afterward 
married to Miss Emma Tates, but soon to experience 
anew the terrible inroads of death ; for he was again 
bereaved and left to his loneliness only a year later, 
and but a few weeks before his own decease. He 
endured these repeated visitations of sorrow with 
Christian resignation and manly fortitude, and still 
bore upon his countenance the expression of cheerful- 
ness; but his heart was dying within him, and at 
length the forces of nature gave way under the 
tremendous burden of pent-up sorrow. 

During the latter part of the summer of 1863 his 
health became unsettled, though he still persisted in 
his usual labors. The decease of his wife deeply 
affected him, and even gave some uneasiness to his 
friends as to his own condition. As an expedient for 
rallying himself, he made a tour to the Northwest 
during the month of September, returning apparently 
much improved. He at once resumed his duties in 
the Church, and preached his last sermon on the Sab- 
bath evening previous to his death. 

For a few days before his decease he had suffered 



40 MEMOIRS OF REV. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 

from difficulty of breathing, but scarcely then con- 
fessed himself to be sick, and on the evening of the 
fourteenth day of October, while seated in his own 
house, he ceased to live. 

His death, so sudden and unexpected by all, brought 
sadness to his large circle of friends, many of whom 
then first realized how much he was beloved by them. 
His funeral, which took place in the church at Beek- 
man Hill, New York, where only a few days before 
he had preached his last sermon, drew together a large 
concourse of genuine mourners, who there united to 
render to him the richest of funeral honors, the tears 
of love. The sorrow for his loss was however greatly 
mitigated by the facts attending his decease. He 
died quietly in his own house, and in the arms of a 
loved and dutiful son, without lingering sickness, 
emaciation, or mental decay. He died as he had 
lived, in the faith and hope of the Gospel of Christ, 
leaving a testimony in his life, that though saved 
only by grace, he had also fought a good fight. He 
was buried in the vault of his father's family at Har- 
lem, where his remains rest in company with those 
of both his parents, his younger brother, and his own 
two companions. His brethren honored his memory 
by a special funeral service in the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church in Seventh-street, New York, the place 
where he first adopted the vows of the Christian life, 
and one of the fields of his ministerial labor, when 
the utterances of love and hope attested the strength 
of the consolations afforded by the Gospel in the 
instances of the deaths of them that having lived to 
the Lord, die in him. 



SERMONS. 



I. 

HALLELUIAH. 

AND I HEARD AS IT WERE THE VOICE OF A GREAT MULTITUDE, AND AS 
THE VOICE OF MANY WATERS, AND AS THE VOICE OF. MIGHTY THUN- 
DERINGS, SAYING, ALLELUIA, FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGN- 

eth. — Rev. xix, 6. 

Halleluiah ! a word very properly left untranslated ; 
a word indigenous to heaven, and brought down 
from the vocabulary of angels and incorporated 
into the various dialects of men. It means, praise 
Jehovah, offer unto God thanksgiving. The Psalmist 
David delighted in the word. Not satisfied with 
praising God himself with uttering his own halle- 
luiah, he calls upon the hosts of heaven to unite 
with him : " Praise him ye angels that excel in 
strength, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure." 
He invites his fellow-men of every rank ; kings and 
princes, young men and maidens, old men and chil- 
dren, in every way, by voice, and organs, and cymbals, 
and trumpets, to join the loud halleluiah to the God of 
heaven. He summons the beasts of the field, the 
birds of the air, and the monsters of the deep, creep- 
ing things and flying fowl, yea, everything that hath 



42 



SEKMONS. 



breath, to praise the Lord. Nor does he stop here. He 
invites inanimate nature to join the chorus. "Praise 
him, ye sun and moon. Praise him, all ye stars of 
light. Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind 
fulfilling his word : mountains and all hills, fruitful 
trees and all cedars." The text may be considered as 
the acceptance of the Psalmist's invitation. Let us 
listen to the pealing chorus of the universal anthem, 
nay, also join in it, and with heart and voice say 
" Halleluiah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth ! " 

That we may understandingly thus unite, let us 
consider, as specified in the text, 

I. These attributes of Jehovah. The Lord God 
omnipotent ; and, 

II. The extent of his dominion. He reigneth. 

I. 1. Yery expressive is the common interpreta- 
tion of our English word Lord. It means in the 
original Saxon, bread, or a bread-giver ; and, said 
the incarnate word, God manifest in the flesh, " I am 
the bread of life." Again, sa;fs he, " The bread of 
heaven is he who cometh down from heaven and 
giveth life unto the world." How expressive the 
designation to him who is the unfailing fountain of 
all blessings ; he who has a supply for the wants of 
all his creatures, who openeth his hand and satisfieth 
the desire of every living thing. " Giving doth not 
impoverish him ;" and the inexhaustibleness of his 
storehouse was exemplified when with a few loaves 
he fed the multitude, and in his hands the bread in- 
creased as he broke and divided it among them. 



HALLELUIAH. 



43 



2. He is the Lord God. God also is a pure Saxon 
word, and means, good, the good being, goodness 
itself. As Lord, he possesses everything requisite for 
the welfare of his creatures ; as God, or the good 
being, we rest assured that he will dispense liberally. 
As in the former case Jesus Christ claimed the title 
of bread-giver, so in this, when one called him good 
master, he replied, " Why callest thou me good ? there 
is none good but one, that is, God." As if he had 
said, Mean you by this appellation to allow my claims 
to supreme divinity ? God and goodness are one ; 
and he who in the language of the apostle went 
about doing good, exemplified thereby his supreme 
divinity. 

3. The last of the titles given to Jehovah in the 
text is the omnipotent, the Lord God omnipotent. 
In other words the almighty, the possessor of unlim- 
ited power. Very inadequate is the idea that we can 
form of omnipotence. We know something of power 
and strength, but what of strength that is almighty, 
of power that is unlimited ? " He doeth according 
to his will in the army of heaven, and among the in- 
habitants of the earth." " What a power," says an 
eloquent writer, " what a power must that be which 
at one and the same moment works in every vegeta- 
ble and animal system in this great world, which up- 
holds, quickens, and invigorates every mind, and at 
the same moment acts in the same efficacious manner 
in every part of the solar system and of all the other 
systems that compose the universe ! a power that is 
at work every moment ill every pari: of this vast 
whole, moves every atom, expands every leaf, finishes 



SERMONS. 



every blade of grass, erects every tree, conducts every 
particle of vapor, every drop of rain, and every flake 
of snow ; guides every ray of light, breathes in every 
wind, thunders in every storm, wings the lightnings, 
pours the streams and rivers, empties the volcano, 
heaves the ocean and shakes the globe." So too, I 
pray you mark it, when the world's Redeemer had 
conquered death, he appeared leading captivity cap- 
tive among his wondering disciples, and expressly 
laid claim to this attribute. " All power," said he, 
" is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Such, 
then, is the character of Jehovah, as indicated by the 
language of the text ; such the attributes of the 
great Governor of the universe. It follows, therefore, 
that his government is one of benevolence and sta- 
bility ; of benevolence because he is good, the good 
being ; and of stability because of his unlimited 
power. While, on the one hand, therefore, it follows 
that all his laws must be designed to promote the 
welfare of his creatures, and that all his acts, however 
mysterious, are the result of infinite benevolence, it 
is equally clear on the other that all his laws-will be 
executed, that he will do all his pleasure. Equally 
evident is it, also, that Jesus Christ is the supreme 
governor here spoken of, that he is the source of 
all blessing, the good being, the Lord God omnip- 
otent ! 

II. Let us turn our thoughts, then, to the extent of 
his dominion. This is made a reason for ascribing 
unto him praise and thanksgiving ; it is halleluiah for 
or because the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The 



HALLELUIAH. 



45 



idea is that of a kingdom ; and although, properly 
speaking, the kingdoms are but one, for our own con- 
venience we may consider it in a fourfold point of 
view. We may view him as reigning over the king- 
dom of nature, the kingdom of grace, the kingdom 
of providence, and the kingdom of glory. 

1. The kingdom of nature includes what is called 
the natural world with the material creation and all 
the workmanship of his hands. Over them all he 
reigneth; their provider, their governor, their king. 

(1.) From the lion, the monarch of the woods, all 
through the intermediate gradations down to the lit- 
tle beetle that we tread upon ; from the eagle that 
gazes wdth an undimmed eye upon the sun in his me- 
ridian glory to the sparrow upon the housetop, not 
one of whom is forgotten by him ; from the leviathan 
that lashes the ocean into foam, down to the little 
gnat that buzzes in the breeze, and the scarce visible 
insect, whose world is a drop of water and whose 
span of life is bounded by an hour ; by him were 
they each individually called into being, by him are 
their returning wants supplied. Their birth, the cir 
cumstances of their life, their death, alike proclaim, 
as with one united voice, the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth. 

(2.) Jtarn from the animal world to the material 
creation. Look at the planets, and stars, and systems 
that gem the blue canopy above us. From the sun, 
faint emblem of his own glory, to the furthest and 
most minute of those remote orbs whose light, though 
traveling at an inconceivable velocity, has not yet 
reached the confines of our globe, he not only " tell- 



46 



SERMONS. 



etli their number, but he calleth them all by their 
names." And as they revolve in their unwearied 
orbits, they proclaim his power and attest his govern- 
ment. 

(3.) Or walk forth into the fields and behold God's 
handiwork on every side and beneath your feet. The 
towering cedar, the majestic oak, the waving willow, 
unite in expressive silence in speaking his praises. 
He causeth the grass to grow, and he clothes the 
smiling fields with corn. His hand paints the lily, 
he causeth the violet to exhale its perfume. From them 
all, he who has a soul may hear the anthem, " Halle- 
luiah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 

(4.) Or leave the earth and view the majestic 
ocean, image of his own immensity, now calm and 
unruffled like an unbounded sea of liquid glass, and 
now lashed into fury and threatening to engulf and 
destroy every living thing, to swallow up the whole 
surface of the earth, and apparently withheld only 
by a shore of level sand. But there is another and 
a mightier barrier, the voice of the Lord God om- 
nipotent, who hath said, and the ocean heard him 
speak, " Hitherto shalt thou come but no further, 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The 
roaring of his billows, mingling with the dashing of 
the cataract, is but the deep bass of the wiiversal 
anthem. 

(5.) Heard ye the thunder ? Saw ye the flashing 
of the vivid lightning, when it seemed as if all na- 
ture were about to be enveloped in its primeval 
chaos ? Fear it not. They too are under the gov- 
ernment of the same Jehovah. It is the God of 



HALLELUIAH. 47 

glory who thundereth : he calleth the lightnings, and 
they say, Here we are. 

2. In the kingdom of providence we see the same 
truth. This relates more particularly to the last of 
God's creation, to man in his individual and collective 
capacity. God's sovereignty is seen in the birth, in 
the life, in the death of every individual. 

(1.) In his birth, so far as regards his parentage, 
the time when and the place where he commences his 
career. 

One is the descendant of a king, and royalty with 
all its gorgeousness awaits him from his very entrance 
upon the stage of action. Another is doomed to drag 
out a life of toil, to tremble at the frown of a fellow- 
worm because in the wisdom of God his parents were 
in bondage. One is born to wealth, another to pov- 
erty. One awakes, first, to consciousness amid the 
voice of prayer and the melody of thanksgiving ; 
the first sounds his ear drinks in are halleluiahs to the 
God of heaven. His parents praise their maker, and, 
almost unconsciously, his young lips follow, their ex- 
ample. Another is the child of vice. Oaths and 
curses and blasphemy are the lullaby of his infancy, 
and he is made familiar with almost every species of 
crime from the first dawn of reason. To the supreme 
Disposer of all events all may say with equal propri- 
ety,* in the language of the sacred writer, " Thine 
eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; and 
in thy book all my members were written, which in 
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was 
none of them." 

In God's providential government the time of each 



48 SERMONS. 

individual's birth attests the same truth. Myriads 
finished their probation in the early history of the 
world ; in that twilight age, before the flood swept 
away the ungodly, when they reckoned their years 
by centuries. Since then, one generation has suc- 
ceeded another. The world has been sometimes 
shrouded in thick darkness ; again a faint glimmering 
of light has dawned upon her horizon ; at the present 
day, by science and Christianity, she is partially illu- 
minated, and the time is coming when the glory of 
God shall lighten it to its remotest extremities. In 
each of these periods have lived, and shall live, im- 
mortal beings like ourselves, destined to tarry a sea- 
son here, and then to wing away to another state of 
existence. It cannot be denied that some periods 
have been more and others less favorable for the set- 
tlement of the important question, " Shall I my 
everlasting days with fiends or angels spend ?" But 
God allotteth to each time and season as seemeth good 
in his sight. 

So, too, the place of nativity is decided by the will 
of God. One draws his first breath in the wilderness, 
another in the little village, and again another in the 
center of the crowded city. Some in those regions 
where the blackness of paganism broods over the in- 
habitants ; others where is erected the throne of idol- 
atry, and where custom consigns many to death in 
the waters of the Ganges, or beneath the bloody car 
of the idol Juggernaut ; while to us birth has been 
given amid the purest light that has ever gladdened 
our earth from the star of Bethlehem. To attribute 
these differences to chance is rank atheism. There 



HALLELUIAH. 



49 



is no such thing as chance, for " the Lord God omnipo- 
tent reigneth," and by him even the hairs of your head 
are all numbered. 

(2.) The same truth is seen if we turn our thoughts 
to the circumstances attendant on the life of every 
individual. " O Lord," said the prophet, " I know 
that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in 
man that walketh to direct his steps and the history 
of every individual attests the truth of the same sen- 
timent. In looking back upon the circumstances of 
life, and the apparently trivial causes which have 
combined to place you in your present position, how 
truly may you say, " the Lord hath led me by a way 
that I knew not." How clearly, then, in surveying 
the lives of the millions of our fellow-creatures, each 
of whom may adopt the same language, is seen the 
truth of the declaration in the text, " the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth." 

(3.) The closing scene of each individual's history, 
the time, the circumstances, and the manner of his 
death, display the same truth. There, death visits 
the cradle of the infant, and with gentle breath kisses 
away his life ; another little one, of the same age too, 
is handled roughly, and blackens and stiffens in con- 
vulsions. There again, w T hen the first perils of in- 
fancy are passed, and the lips are rejoicing in the 
strange mystery of speech, death comes and quenches 
ruthlessly the flame of intellect, and dims forever the 
eye of genius. One passes on until he arrives at 
manhood, and is just beginning to enjoy life ; that he 
should die is perhaps the last thing in the thoughta 

of those who love him.. And yet the news is true, 

4 



50 



SERMONS. 



and often, O how often, is the heart of the living par- 
ent buried in the coffin of the dead child. Many 
a bereaved David takes up the lamentation of the 
royal father, and exclaims in the bitterness of his 
soul, " Would to God that I had died for thee, my 
son, my son ! " Suddenly, in the very midst of his 
usefulness, God calleth away the father and the hus- 
band, and the pall of sadness is thrown around his 
dwelling-place, and the sanctuary is shrouded in 
gloom at the recollection of his efforts in the cause 
of piety and truth ; while others, of apparently little 
use to their fellow-men, and sometimes even a positive 
injury, live on until the machine wears out, and there 
are none to weep for them, or to shed a tear at the 
close of their long and useless life. 

3. But especially in the kingdom of grace is seen the 
sovereignty of the great Jehovah. When the world 
had revolted universally from the government of God 
and men were sunk in gross idolatry, it pleased him to 
select one family and with them to establish his cove- 
nant. They had light in their dwellings while all 
around was darkness. To them he made his promises ; 
he declared that he would be their God, and that they 
should be his people. Accordingly he displayed 
among them his paternal goodness, and made known 
such displays of his glory as no other people had ever 
witnessed. "Happy wert thou, O Israel: who was 
like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield 
of thy help and the sword of thy excellency." Very 
explicitly and very frequently did God declare unto 
them that it was not for any goodness on their part 
that they had thus been selected from the nations of 



HALLELUIAH. 



51 



the earth. " Understand, therefore," said he, " that 
the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to 
possess it for thy righteousness ; for thou art a stiff- 
necked people." God gave it them in the exercise of 
his own good pleasure, and the only answer that can 
be given to the question, "Why were they selected ? 
must be given in the language of Christ himself on 
another occasion, " Even so, father, for so it seemed 
good in thy sight." We see the same thing in his se- 
lection of the spot where in the fullness of time God 
was manifest in the flesh,' in the period selected for 
the incarnation of the world's redeemer, and in the 
selection of the first twelve who were to publish the 
glad tidings of salvation. In the kingdom of his 
grace, everywhere, from that day to the present, is 
visible also the fact that "the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth." Large portions of the earth are yet in 
darkness, and even to-day myriads are living and 
dying in the region of the valley of the shadow of 
death. How long, O Lord God Almighty, how long ! 
O send forth thy light and thy truth, and in answer 
to the prayer taught by thyself to thy people, " thy 
kingdom come." Still, too, as evidently as in the 
selection of prophets and apostles is seen his sov- 
ereignty in the selection of those who are called to 
proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. From 
those, in many instances, whom the world deems the 
most unlikely, does he choose and send forth his min- 
isters. Talent and genius and intellect are fre- 
quently passed by, and everywhere is he teaching the 
world that men cannot make a minister ; that it is his 
province to give the anointing and to touch the lips 



52 



SERMONS. 



with fire. While thus he is giving evidence that in 
the kingdom of grace "the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth," he has made it the duty of his people to 
pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth 
laborers into his harvest, laborers that may break up 
the fallow ground and sow the seed. And what mar- 
vel if, as when the Son of man himself sowed it, some 
fall by the wayside, and some in stony places, and 
some among thorns ; there is a hope, a blessed assur- 
ance, that some shall fall in good ground, and by his 
blessing bring forth fruit to his glory. 

4. But it is in the kingdom of glory, in that upper 
world, where are congregated around his throne the 
angelic hosts and the first born sons of light, that his 
supremacy is seen in the highest perfection, and the 
wisdom, power, and goodness of God are exhibited in 
the most vivid light. There swells longest and loud- 
est the pealing anthem, Halleluiah. This arises 
from the fact that the inhabitants of heaven know 
more of God and his designs than can possibly be 
understood by us who dwell upon his footstool. 
"While to us, in many of his dispensations, clouds and 
darkness are round about him, they see by the light 
of his own effulgent glory that justice and judgment 
are the habitation of his throne. What we see 
through a glass darkly and know but in part, they 
see even as they are seen and know even as they are 
known. To us is visible but a small part of the in- 
termediate links of the chain that binds his govern- 
ment in one entire and harmonious uniformity ; they 
are enabled to gaze upon his wondrous works from 
the beginning, to behold visibly what to us is matter 



HALLELUIAH. 



53 



of faith and revelation, how all things are working 
together for good to them who love God ; and how 
everything strange and mysterious as it may appear 
to us, is tending to the advancement of his own 
glory. They were with him when he stretched the 
North over the empty space, and hung the earth upon 
nothing. They sang together and shouted for joy 
when the Creator's last day's work was done, when 
man appeared in the likeness and image of his God. 
And when, in the exercise of his unbounded mercy, 
the Redeemer was about to visit our earth that he 
might seek and save that which was lost, they winged 
their flight to the hill country of Judea and an- 
nounced his birth to the astonished shepherds : they 
attended upon his steps throughout his career of suf- 
fering and sorrow. In the garden of Gethsemane 
angels came and ministered unto him ; angels rejoice 
when the object of those sufferings is accomplished 
and the sinner repenteth ; they are sent forth as min- 
istering spirits to the heirs of salvation ; and in all the 
displays of his sovereignty in the kingdoms of nature, 
of providence, and of grace, they offer unceasingly 
the voice of praise and thanksgiving. 

But it is not until the final consummation of all 
terrestrial things that the language of the text shall 
receive its full and complete accomplishment. When 
the kingdom of nature is destroyed, and that of prov- 
idence has been fulfilled, and that of grace is ended ; 
when the throne of his glory is erected ; when 
the angels have been sent upon their last embassy, 
and have gathered the elect from the four winds of 
heaven ; when by the light of God's countenance 



54 



SERMONS. 



all darkness is dispelled ; when what once appeared 
and what now appears unfathomably mysterious has 
been made perfectly plain ; when the universe shall 
see how the wrath of man has been made to praise 
him, how rapine and fraud, injustice and oppression, 
have been overruled for the glory of the Lord God 
omnipotent ; when by that light are seen his goodness 
and his justice even in the horrors of famine, the rag- 
ing pestilence, and the devastations of the earthquake ; 
when every heart shall feel that he hath done all 
things well, as it sees the glorious solution of the dark 
enigma of public calamity and domestic sorrow and 
private grief, then from the countless multitude which 
no man can number shall peal through the concave 
of heaven, loud as the voice of many waters, and loud 
as the voice of mighty thunderings, " Halleluiah, for 
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 

What untold myriads join the shout. The patri- 
archs, from righteous Abel, the first who escaped from 
earth to heaven, and Abraham the father of the faith- 
ful, the prevailing Israel, and Moses the leader of 
Israel's hosts, are there. There, too, in shining ranks, 
the prophets stand : David with his golden harp, and 
Isaiah, whose lips were touched with fire from God's 
own altar, and Jeremiah, no longer the weeping 
prophet, for God has wiped away the last tear. There, 
too, are the apostles of the Saviour, and near them 
the noble army of martyrs, those who shrank not 
from the baptism of blood, and followed their suffer- 
ing Lord through imprisonments and scourgings, and 
the sword, and the rack, and the gibbet, and the cross. 
The good and the virtuous of every age and every 



HALLELUIAH. 



55 



clime are tliere ; and little infants too, those who but 
opened their eyes upon the miseries of this life and 
closed them again in death, for Christ called them to 
himself. One question now and I have done : Will 
you be there, ?ny hearer ? That is a question that you 
alone can answer. The Lord God omnipotent, reign- 
ing supreme in the kingdoms of nature, of provi- 
dence, of grace, and of glory, leaves this question for 
your decision. He sets before you life and death. 
He exercises no irresistible power over the human 
will. He consigns no soul to darkness by an irre- 
versible decree. He says, and he says to thee in per- 
fect sincerity, in the perfect sincerity of infinite love, 
Choose life that you may live. I repeat the question, 
Shall your voice be heard swelling the chorus of this 
glorious anthem ? Its melody must be learned here, 
for they who praise not God on earth will never praise 
him in heaven. Look around you ; all nature and 
providence and grace are calling you, as with one 
voice, to tune your heart in praises to God. Offer 
then unto him thanksgiving. Give him your heart 
with all its affections, your homage, your adoration, 
and your love ; and when the kingdoms of this world 
have become the kingdoms of our God and of his 
Christ, then shalt thou join in ascribing might and 
majesty and dominion to him that sitteth upon the 
throne, and your voice shall be heard mingling with 
the mighty mass in saying, " Halleluiah, for the Lord 
God omnipotent reigneth." 



56 



SERMONS. 



II. 

MANLY VIRTUES. 

Show thyself a man. — 1 Kings ii, 2. 

Shrouded in gloom was Jerusalem, the holy city. 
Men are gathering there in little clusters, on the 
highways, in the streets, and in the market-place. 
The theme of conversation is not of a personal or 
private character. It is national, and has reference * 
to the prosperity and prospects of their native land. 
Their king has been smitten with sore disease. The 
symptoms are more and more alarming ; and now, 
after many alternations of hope and despondency, it 
is evident that the monarch, combining in his own 
person the brave warrior and the sagacious statesman, 
is upon his death-bed, patiently awaiting his sum- 
mons to that judgment-seat whence there is no appeal ; 
to that tribunal before which the monarch and the 
meanest of his vassals, the sovereign and the slave, 
stand, stripped of every external distinction, on the 
same level. 

Within the walls of the palace there is deep wail- 
ing and lamentation. The relatives of the dying 
king are there. Gathered around his couch, and gaz- 
ing upon the ravages of disease, they mark the steady 
onset of the last enemy. There, too, the young Solo- 
mon, best beloved of his father and heir to his throne, 
stands listening to those accents of affection and in- 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



57 



struction heard only from a parent's lips, and around 
which the solemnities of the parting hour throw an 
intensity of interest. The pomp and pride of earthly 
glory are fading from the vision and from the thoughts 
of the dying man ; affairs of state have lost all their 
interest ; his crown and scepter, once so dear, are 
now mere baubles, unworthy of a thought. The king 
remembers only that he is a father. Strengthening 
himself in his bed, and gathering up his remaining 
energies for the effort, as if he would concentrate all 
the fond wishes of his soul, and all the advice that 
his experience enabled him to give in one short sen- 
tence, full of meaning and easily to be remembered, 
he exclaimed to Solomon, " Show thyself a man." 

And what is man ? "What is he in himself con- 
sidered? What as regards the relation which he 
holds to his fellow-men ? And what with reference 
to the God who gave him being ? 

I. 1. The distinguishing characteristic of man in 
himself considered is evidently intellect, the faculty 
of reasoning, the power to think. It is this that dis- 
tinguishes him from the brutes around him ; this 
that constitutes him lord of this lower world. But 
we see in the human family a vast diversity in this 
respect, a diversity continually widening, from the 
cradle to the grave, between individuals of the same 
nature and of the same capabilities. 

Multitudes nominally men are in reality, even in 
mature years, mere children. They think, they speak, 
they act like children. Why is it so ? Did the 
bountiful parent of all good withhold from them the 



5-8 



SERMONS. 



capabilities bestowed on others % It is true there is 
here and there the flame of precocious genius burst- 
ing forth even in infancy ; and there have been, few 
and far between, instances where the lamp of reason 
has never been enkindled by the torch of the di- 
vinity. 

But leaving out of the question these isolated ex- 
ceptions to the general rule, it is beyond controversy 
true that, as a general thing, he that has been created 
in God's image may by the cultivation of his intel- 
lect show himself a man. It is a libel on the Deity 
to suppose the contrary ; a flat contradiction of the 
fundamental principle of our republic. The charter 
of our liberties declares that all men are created 
equal. The page of inspiration assures us that the 
wisdom which cometh down from the Father of lights 
is without partiality, and that it is not good that the 
soul be without knowledge. Are all, then, to be phi- 
losophers % To devote their days to the pages of 
literature and their nights to the classic regions of 
antiquity ? Most assuredly not. Such a course 
would defeat the very object of man's creation as a 
social being. It is not to exhibit himself as a book- 
worm, a pedant, or even as a philosopher, but in that 
sphere of life in which God has placed him, there to 
show himself a man. 

In all ages, man's dissatisfaction with his lot in life 
has been the theme of the satirist. " If I were in 
any other situation, had I any other calling, were my 
trade, profession, business different from what it is, 
how much happier should I be ! How much easier 
then to show myself a man." 



MANLY VIKTUES. 



The sailor tossed upon the boisterous wave sighs 
for the calm retreat of the husbandman. The farmer 
is discontented with his unvarying round of toil ; 
he would like to visit other lands. Nature in her 
gayest livery has become wearisome to his gaze. The 
melody of birds a tiresome monotony. O how he 
would like to exchange them for the roaring of ocean, 
his peaceful sleep for the fitful mast-head slumbers of 
the mariner. The mechanic would be a merchant, 
while the merchant flatters himself that he should 
have been much happier, more useful, more a man 
if he had devoted himself to some one of the learned 
professions. The lawyer envies the man who is 
exempt from the cares and perplexities which harass 
him. " How happy," is his mental exclamation, " how 
happy he who has a competency ; who may sit down 
all day, and every day, at his ease." The man of 
wealth, is he satisfied ? Nay, he is weary with that 
most intolerable of all weariness, that of having noth- 
ing to do. If he might have some office, some 
honorable station among his fellows, ay, then he 
might show himself a man. Give him that office, 
let him have his heart's desire. The nation shall 
look up to him to hold the helm of state amid the 
rocks and quicksands on every side. Poor man ! he 
little dreamed of the annoyances that now prey 
upon his very soul ; the clamors of partisans, the 
failure of false friends, the unceasing bitterness of 
opponents. His conduct scrutinized by the sleep- 
less eye of envy, his failings magnified, his mo- 
tives impeached, his integrity questioned, he begins 
to sigh 



60 



SERMONS. 



i( for a lodge in some vast wilderness: 
Some boundless contiguity of shade, 
"Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 
Of unsuccessful or successful war, 
May never reach him more." 

Thus true is it that every situation in life has its 
own peculiar difficulties, and that man, fully and 
keenly conscious of his own, heeds not, sees not those 
of his neighbor. He who supposes there are insur- 
mountable obstacles in his way arising from any 
source whatever, may rest assured that he is deceiv- 
ing himself ; and if he imagines that in some other 
sphere he should be better enabled to show himself a 
man, and therefore excuses himself from the cultiva- 
tion of his intellect and the enlargement of those 
powers which constitute him man, will never get be- 
yond infancy. In most cases there is time and op- 
portunity — very few who cannot spare an hour or 
two. " He will die a child though a hundred yearg 
old." 

2. This leads me to remark that Industry is an 
essential ingredient in the formation of manly charac- 
ter. Man's very constitution, to say nothing of the 
experience of others, or of the teachings of infinite 
wisdom, nay, all his faculties of soul and body, his 
health, his sources of enjoyment, all combine to 
assure him that he was formjed for a life of activity. 

To be engaged mentally or bodily in some way or 
other is equally essential to the well being of the 
community around him, and to his own individual 
welfare. The curse which was pronounced against 
man for his transgression, and which dooms him to 
eat his bread by the sweat of his face, has been con- 



MANLY VIRTUES, 



61 



verted, by the smiles of heaven upon honest industry, 
into man's dearest and choicest earthly blessing. 

In this respect, also, we see how beautifully the 
teachings of inspiration coincide with the lessons of 
experience. Abominable as infidelity is considered 
by the sacred writers, there is one thing that in their 
estimation is even worse ; that one thing is idleness. 
" He that provideth not for his own," says St. Paul, 
"is worse than an infidel." 

Whatever may be the case in the overgrown popu- 
lations of the old 'world, in our own country there is 
no truth more susceptible of demonstration than that 
industry will procure the necessaries and the comforts 
of life, and that diligence will secure in addition a 
sufficiency of time for the improvement of mind and 
the cultivation of intellect. 

In the whole circle of errors prevalent in the 
world, I know of none more absurd and more per- 
nicious in its tendency than that so commonly re- 
ceived by young men, and by young women too, that 
it is genteel to do nothing, and to have nothing to do. 
It is an axiom full of potency, and worthy to be in- 
scribed as a talisman on every youthful heart, Idle- 
ness is unmanly. 

3. Another element of manhood, which I shall no- 
tice briefly, is decision. of character. Without it 
application is almost useless, and industry itself fre- 
quently abortive. Every one ought to be able to 
reply with some degree of certainty to the simple 
and ever recurring questions, What will you be ? 
what will you do ? And yet how many there are 
that are the mere sport of circumstance all through 



62 



SEBM03TS. 



life ? Fickle, inconstant, irresolute, they do nothing 
because they have never been able to decide what 
they will do. Such characters mark out for them- 
selves perhaps some course of study which they pur- 
pose to pursue, some business they intend to follow. 
In a little while something else arrests their atten- 
tion. Some other pursuit is more congenial to their 
feelings ; more interesting, more useful, more profit- 
able. Of course they embrace it greedily. You 
think they are now decided, but a day or two dispels 
the delusion, and you find them with equal ardor 
bent upon some new object which with equal facility 
will be abandoned in favor of some other ignis fa- 
tuus, some new Jack-o'-lantern. Thus the season of 
youth passes away, and when their friends and their 
country had a right to look for men, behold they are 
but children still. 

So too in the halls of legislation, as well as in the 
pursuits of professional life, the business of trade and 
manufacture, and even in the prosecution of the me- 
chanic arts, he who lacks decision of character will 
never rise to eminence. 

Just in proportion, moreover, to his wavering and 
indecision will he be in himself unhappy as well as 
useless. Perplexed, harassed, soured by the incessant 
fluctuations of his own mind, his energies wasted and 
nothing accomplished, he is mortified when he looks 
back upon the past, and the future is all hazy and 
indistinct, a mist which he fears to penetrate because 
lie can discover no one definite object at which to 
aim. 

Contrast now this character, this full-grown child, 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



68 



with him whose energy of soul and decision of pur- 
pose stamp him with the attributes and entitle him 
to the appellation of man. Having marked out for 
himself his course, he pursues it steadily. Unseduced 
by the allurements held out to him, unterrifled by 
the opposition around him, obstacles disappear, and 
circumstances apparently the most adverse bend to 
him who will not bow to them. He is happy in a 
consciousness of his own strength. What he has 
already accomplished, nerves his spirit for the prose- 
cution of what remains to be done. The mass of 
mankind* make way for him, and do him homage. 
They opposed him, perchance, at the outset of his 
career; but now they clear the space around him, 
and sit down, perfectly satisfied that it is more pru- 
dent to make that man a friend than to have him for 
an enemy. The mob marvel at his good fortune, 
they call him lucky. Could they analyze the ele- 
ments of his success, they would discover that its 
prime ingredient was his own indomitable energy, 
and that he was not dealing in mere hyperbole who 
exclaimed, 

"Man is the maker of immortal fate." 

II. But man is to be considered with reference to 
his fellows. It is not for himself only that he lives. 
When he forgets that he is allied to the human fam- 
ily, that he is a link in the great brotherhood of the 
race, he fails most signally to show himself a man. 
Thus was it with Napoleon Buonaparte. He had genius, 
his industry was unceasing, his energy almost unpar- 
alleled ; and yet selfishness was so predominant in his 



64 



SERMONS. 



character that he appeared a monster in human shape 
rather than a man ; a meteor that shone with re- 
splendent luster, but blasted while it blazed. 

The qualifications of manhood in this aspect may- 
be comprised under three topics, Courtesy, Sympathy, 
and Public Spirit. 

1. I begin with Courtesy. I mean by it what the 
apostle meant when he said, " be courteous ;" be some- 
thing more than what passes in the world for po- 
liteness. That, too generally, is mere affectation and 
grimace. He who would show himself a man among 
men must alike avoid the monkey and the boor. A 
fop and a clown are equally distant from the charac- 
ter of man. Courtesy, or true politeness, consists in 
treating every individual with the respect to which 
his character entitles him, irrespective of the ficti- 
tious diversities of birth or wealth. It looks at moral 
worth rather than at the station which it occupies. 
It does homage to man, and not to the broadcloth 
which envelopes him. It is always pleasant, always 
agreeable, and endeavors to put every one at his ease. 
The counterfeit or false politeness, on the other hand, 
is formal, cold, ceremonious. It talks of dignity 
while it exhibits littleness. It is haughtily repulsive 
to some and cringingly obsequious to others. Un- 
manly alike in both cases, it almost justifies by its 
exhibition the severe satire of the poet, and you begin 
to fancy that some of nature's journeymen have made 
men and not made them well, they imitate humanity 
so abominably. 

2. Sympathy is another essential element in the 
exhibition of manly character. It is a feeling for 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



65 



the wants, and the woes, and the sufferings of our 
fellow-men. Cold apathy and stoical indifference, 
however much they have been admired, are no part 
of man's better nature. He deserves not the name 
of man who feels not the sorrows of his fellows. In 
this world there is ample room for the manifestation 
of this feeling, and herein it differs from that mawk- 
ish sensibility winch sometimes usurps its name ; it 
shows itself in action. It is visible and tangible. It 
delights to minister consolation, to relieve the dis- 
tressed, to wipe away with gentle hand the tear of 
sorrow. True sympathy will not be restrained. It 
is a perennial fountain that cannot be dammed up. 
It gushes forth spontaneously, blessing and being 
blessed. When from any cause it can do no more, 
it will speak, and while there is melting music in its 
tones for those who suffer wrongfully, it grates harsh 
thunder upon the ears of him who does the wrong. 
No wonder, therefore, that everywhere the oppressor 
should seek to shut out his victim from the sympa- 
thies of his fellow-men ; that he should hedge him- 
self round by laws of his own making, and tell us to 
stand off, because his acts are legal. Sympathy may 
not violate law, but she will speak. She will tell 
the oppressor while he riots upon the unpaid toil of 
his bondman that that bondman is a human being, 
that his conduct is an outrage upon the race, that the 
iron by which he secures what he calls his property 
has entered into the soul of a fellow-immortal, that 
it is our brother's blood that cries from the earth to 
our common Father in heaven. In the whole history 
of the human race there is not, perhaps, a more glo- 



66 



SERMONS. 



rious illustration of the power of human sympathy 
than that afforded by the emancipation of the slaves 
in the British West India Islands. Age after age 
had their lives been made bitter with cruel bondage. 
Truly might it be said that on the side of the oppress- 
ors there was power. But at length the sympathies 
of the British nation were aroused. The tide rose 
higher and higher, until at length it swept away like 
cobwebs the obstacles that were at one time deemed 
absolutely insurmountable. The fire waxed hotter 
and hotter, until it melted the chains that force had 
been unable to break. 

This great event took place on the 1st of August, 
1834, and the manner in which the boon of freedom 
was received is memorable as adding the crowning 
wreath to the triumph of human sympathy. 

The night of the 31st of July preceding the day 
when slavery was to come to an end was kept by the 
candidates for freedom as a watch-night in all their 
chapels, and the following account of one of these 
meetings at St. John's is given by one who was him- 
self present : 

" The spacious house was filled at an early hour. 
All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus 
of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, 
and as they united in prayer, the voice of the leader 
was drowned in the universal acclamation of thanks- 
giving, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and 
glory to God who had come down for their deliver- 
ance. In such exercises the evening was spent until 
the hour of twelve approached. It was then pro- 
posed that when the clock on the cathedral should 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



67 



begin to strike, the whole congregation should fall 
upon their knees and receive the boon of freedom in 
silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first 
note, the immense assembly fell prostrate on their 
knees. All was silence, save the quivering, half- 
stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow 
notes of the clock fell upon the multitude ; peal on 
peal, peal on peal, rolled ever the prostrate throng in 
tones of angels' voices, thrilling among the desolate 
chords and weary heart-strings. Scarce had the clock 
sounded its last note when the lightning flashed 
vividly around, and a loud peal of thunder rolled 
along the sky. God's pillar of fire and trump of ju- 
bilee ! A moment of profoundest silence passed, 
then came the hurst They broke forth in prayer, they 
shouted, they sung, they clapped their hands, leaped 
up, fell down, clasped each other in their free arms, 
cried, laughed, and went to and fro, tossing upward 
their unfettered hands ; but high above the whole 
there was a mighty sound which ever and anon 
swelled up ; it was the utterings in broken negro dia- 
lect of gratitude to God." 

This event, one of the most glorious that ever oc- 
curred upon our earth, this sudden transformation of 
tilings into men, I attribute to the power of human 
sympathy, a power abundantly able to break the arm 
of oppression, and to cause the hearts of the oppressed 
and the downtrodden to leap for joy. It is an emo- 
tion worthy to be cherished by all who call them- 
selves men, and its exhibition is at all times and 
everywhere manly. Jesus wept, and the volume of 
inspiration directs us to weep with them that weep. 



68 



SERMONS. 



3. The third element of manly character in its ex- 
hibition I have called public spirit. I do not call 
it patriotism, because that is a word that has been 
most lamentably abused. The politician and the 
patriot, two characters totally distinct, are by multi- 
tudes confounded or blended into one. He that can 
bluster loudest, and is most noisy at public meetings 
and at the polls, deems hirfiself the greatest patriot. 
There are many politicians, few patriots. Public 
spirit does not show itself by noise and clamor. It 
seeks not the emoluments of official life. It is far 
less anxious for the success of a party than for the wel- 
fare and the glory of the commonwealth. But there 
are those who tell us they take no interest in politics. 
They care not who is in office; they must look after 
their own affairs. Let the country take care of itself. 
They talk not thus from any fancied moral superior- 
ity, but they tell you they have become disgusted 
with the disgraceful tumults of electioneering tricks 
and party squabbles. In other words, they offer as a 
reason for their neglect of duty the simple fact that 
bad men attend to theirs. Surely a very flimsy rea- 
son, and if all should follow their example, what 
then, what then % Let them answer that question. 
But say such men, Of what importance can one vote 
be ? It will certainly make very little odds whether 
I vote or not. True, very true ; a truth, however, that 
required very little sagacity to discover. They might 
have gone further and ascertained to their perfect 
satisfaction that it would have made very little odds 
in the destiny of their country had they never been 
born, or being born, if they had had their birth and 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



69 



their dwelling-place in the deserts of Siberia or in the 
goodly city of Timbuctoo. But more than this. It 
is a manly principle for every citizen to use the elect- 
ive franchise according to the dictates of his own 
judgment, to be no man's slave, to wear no one's liv- 
ery. In a republic there will always be parties, and 
there will always be those who will follow the leaders 
and stick to the party, right or wrong. Indeed, so 
straight are these lines drawn that it requires no little 
moral courage, even when a man is convinced that 
his party is in the wrong, to come out and forsake it, 
to incur from his associates the appellation of a traitor 
or a turncoat, and yet when the judgment is con- 
vinced, it is manly to do and to bear even this. 
"While he whose sense of duty is so pliant, whose 
conscience is so accommodating that he can veer 
round with the wind of popularity, and in the hope 
of obtaining office or for any other cause is more 
anxious to be in the majority than to be in the right ; 
while such a one is a fit object for ridicule and con- 
tempt, the man who, unawed by frowns and unse- 
duced by flattery, carries his integrity to the polls, 
will have the peace of a good conscience and the ap- 
proval of all whose approbation is worth having. It 
was a noble sentiment, uttered by one whose name is 
familiar to you all, a noble sentiment, " I had rather 
be right than be president." 

In all things that concern the welfare of your na- 
tive land, that pertain to her advancement among the 
nations of the earth, that tend to perpetuate the civil 
and religious liberty bequeathed to us by our fathers, 
in all these things show thyself a man. 



70 



SERMONS. 



It falls in place just here to notice a prevailing 
characteristic of the age. It is the affectation of 
using what is called beautiful language. Our nervous 
Anglo-Saxon, in many of its expressive words and 
phrases, is deemed ungenteel. It must be diluted and 
enervated by what this foppery is pleased to call eu- 
phemisms, sonorous epithets from foreign languages. 
Thus schools have given place to seminaries, insti- 
tutes, and lyceums. They don't teach children to 
spell, and read, and write, as in the olden time, but, 
forsooth, they give lessons in orthography and orthoe- 
py, and the child takes home a few sheets of paper 
stitched together, blotted and dog's-eared, bearing the 
high-sounding title, specimens of calligraphy. I asked 
a little girl, designated as a young lady in the cata- 
logue of a fashionable institute, I asked her what was 
meant by calisthenics, which I found in the list of 
accomplishments professedly taught there. " Calis- 
thenics ?" said she, " why, that's jumping the rope." 
There is now lying before me a specimen of this 
beautifying propensity in what is called the Lord's 
prayer. I will copy it, and while there can be no 
question that it is faithful to the original, you will 
perhaps admire its mellifluous cadences. It com- 
mences thus : " Paternal ancestor," that, you see, is 
the same as " our father," " Paternal ancestor, existing 
in elysium, consecrated be thine appellation, thy ju- 
risdiction advance, thy determination be executed on 
terra firma as in elysium." Isn't that beautiful? 
But our neologist exceeds himself in the next sen- 
tence. Instead of the simple petition " give us this 
dav our daily bread," he has it, " confer upon us dur- 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



71 



ing this mundane sphere's axillary revolution our 
diurnal sustenance." That is certainly sonorous, a 
specimen of magnificent sesquipedalian rotundity. 
He continues in the same strain, " remit unto us our 
violations of thine injunctions as we remit the pecca- 
dilloes of our associates, and conduct us not into en- 
ticements, but effectuate our deliverance from mal- 
feasance." Let me not be understood as pleading for 
the use of those few words in our language which 
from their association have an air of vulgarity. They 
may be safely abandoned ; but I do insist that it is no 
mark of good breeding or good scholarship to forsake 
the plain, precise, and nervous expressions of our 
mother tongue for interlopers that have nothing more 
to recommend them than their novelty and their 
foreign origin. It was in this way, by the affectation 
of Greek idioms and compounds, that the language 
of the ancient Romans became, after the Augustan 
age, so diluted and enervated as to lose nearly all the 
majesty that it once possessed. While, on the con- 
trary, the preservation of the Greek in its purity for 
a length of time unequaled in the history of any 
other language, is to be attributed mainly to the con- 
tempt that people had for the use of any foreign 
terms. Whencesoever they came, and by whomso- 
ever used, the Greeks branded all these euphonistic 
improvements with the contemptuous epithet, bar- 
ba?*isms. 

" 'Tis praise enough 
To till the ambition of a common man, 
That Chatham's language is his mother tongue." 

And be it observed here that it is not the situation, 



72 



SEKMONS. 



the office, the trade, the employment, that confer 
dignity, it is the manner in which its duties are dis- 
charged. He knows little of this world's history who 
supposes that a majority of the brightest names upon 
her tablet belonged to the inheritors of large posses- 
sions or to the descendants of eminent rank. On the 
contrary, they shone forth from what purse-proud 
arrogance is pleased to style the lower orders. This 
thought is well expressed in the well known couplet 
of the poet : 

" Honor and shame from no condition nse ; 
Act vjell your part, there all the honor lies." 

" Your father was a cobbler, mine was a profession- 
al gentleman, a lawyer." " Even so," replied he to 
whom this insolent language was addressed, "even 
bo, my father did make and mend shoes, but mark 
you, he did it well. Tour's was indeed a professional 
gentleman; he called himself a lawyer; everybody 
else called him a pettifogger." Of little consequence 
what you do for a livelihood, only do it well. 

But you have an idea that in some other pursuit 
you would get rich faster. It is very possible you 
might, and then again it is possible you might not. 
Money, after all, is not man's chief good. The dol- 
lar is not almighty. " Pa," said a little boy some 
four or five years old who had recently lost his mother, 
" Pa," said he, as he sat by the side of his widowed 
father, whose whole soul was engrossed with the 
idea of wealth, " Pa," said he, u what is money ?" 
" Money % " replied the father, " Money, my boy, O 
ho, money I " " Yes," replied the child, " but, Pa, 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



73 



what is money ? " "O, money, my boy, money," re- 
plied he, " money can do everything." " Can it?" 
said the child, musingly, " can it ? I wish then it would 
bring me back my mother." 

I deem it perfectly in place here, and becoming 
my office as a minister of Christ, to warn you against 
a. growing error on this subject. That error is that 
Christianity and love of country are incompatible; 
that public spirit and the spirit of Christ cannot co- 
exist in the same bosom. Never was there a greater 
mistake. He who came to dispel the moral darkness 
of our world, who taught man his duty to his maker, 
taught him also his duty to his country. When he 
said, " Render unto God the things that are God's," 
he said also, " and unto Caesar the things that are 
Caesar's." An injunction specially applicable in a 
government like ours, where we make our own 
Caesars, and where every public measure is submitted 
in one form or other to the decision of the great mass. 
The wise and the good have no right to throw away 
the influence given to them by God and the constitu- 
tion, no right to stand aloof and let the rabble rule. 
"While the spirit of Christianity denounces the mad- 
ness and the folly of political strife ; while she says, 
" Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the 
earth," she unites her voice with that of the genius of 
liberty, and says, " In all things that concern the wel- 
fare of your native land, that pertain to her advance- 
ment among the nations of the earth, that tend to 
perpetuate the civil and religious liberty bequeathed 
to us by our fathers, in all these things, show thyself 
a man." 



74 



SERMONS. 



III. 1 have as yet alluded to man only with refer- 
ence to himself and his fellows. 1 come now, in 
closing my discourse, to notice him as destined to live 
forever. It is in this aspect especially that it becomes 
him to show himself a man. 

1. Is God a sovereign ? Has he the right to give 
laws to his subjects % Is the right clear, indisputa- 
ble, founded on the very nature of the case ? It must, 
then, to leave out of the question every other consid- 
eration, it must be unmanly to violate those laws. 
Indeed, the common sense of mankind begins to see 
and to acknowledge this, that there is no one of his 
commandments but what it is manly to obey ; that 
he has enacted not a solitary prohibition but what it 
is unmanly to violate. 

Who deems it a manly accomplishment to blas- 
pheme, or take the name of God in vain ? Who says 
he shows himself a man that does not honor his father 
and his mother ? What ethical system teaches that 
it is manly to utter that which is not true ? to cheat or 
to defraud ? to seduce innocence or to covet another's 
goods % to sport with the life or the good name of his 
fellows ? Indeed, he would exhibit great hardihood 
who should incorporate in a system of ethics and pub- 
lish to the world that it would be manly, not to say 
right, under any circumstances, to do unto another 
what he would not have that other do unto him. 

That is a miserable piece of sophistry by which 
many delude themselves when they talk of the myste- 
ries of Christianity, and argue that because Christians 
differ on many speculative points in theology there- 
fore they know not what to belive, and are consequent^ 



MAjSTLY VIRTUES. 



75 



ly excusable for not doing what they know ought to 
be done. The voice of God, conscience, nay, common 
sense itself, pronounces such a subterfuge unmanly. 

2. But the infinite God is something more than 
man's sovereign and lawgiver. He is his benefactor, 
bountiful in goodness and abundant in loving kind- 
ness. God gave him being, endowed him with all 
his faculties of soul and body, and surrounds him 
from day to day with blessings numberless and im- 
measurable. These assertions need no proof. They 
are palpable, self-evident. He is not only blind, but 
willfully blind, who does not see and, seeing, acknowl- 
edge their truth. It is here that the glory of God 
is most strikingly displayed. Were he merely a law- 
giver, swaying the scepter of the universe with resist- 
less and unlimited power, he might justly be an object 
of terror and dread. Fear would then enforce that 
obedience which is now primarily demanded only 
from the better feelings of the heart. How very 
easy would it be for the Almighty, were he so dis- 
posed, to com/pel obedience to his laws ; to treat you 
like a little child, with the rod constantly hanging 
over you : the lightnings of Sinai flashing continually 
in your eye, and its thunders perpetually ringing in 
your ear. But he deals not thus with you. He treats 
you not like a little child, but stooping down from 
the effulgent glory of his throne, and addressing you 
in the language of tender entreaty, he says, Show 
thyself a man, and come, let us reason together ! Is 
it manly to decline the invitation, to treat it with 
cold contempt? Is it manly to be ungrateful? 
Whose heart is so callous as not to feel how mon- 



70 



SERMONS. 



strons a thing it is when ingratitude is exhibited in 
the relations of this life; by a child, for instance, 
toward a fond father ? "What bosom does not echo 
the sentiment put by the poet into the lips of the old 
man thus treated by his children : 

" Ingratitude ! thou marble-hearted fiend! 
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child 
Than the sea monster 1" 

Carry, then, this sentiment up toward thy Father in 
heaven. Meditate on his goodness, his forbearance, 
his long-suffering, his love, and by the emotions of a 
grateful heart, show thyself a man ! 

3. It is just here that the revelation of God's will, 
in the precious truths of the Bible, comes in to dispel 
the natural ignorance and blindness of the human 
heart. It teaches man how he may show his grati- 
tude to his God ; for whoever heard of gratitude that 
did not exhibit itself in some way or other ? His will 
is made known to man, and the Almighty is revealed 
as scanning the emotions of his heart, as listening to 
the words of his lips, and as surveying the whole 
course of his conduct. It presents him as man's 
judge, before whom the record of every individual's 
history is open, and who will in righteousness render 
to every man according to his works. The Bible 
tells him that it would be manly to prepare for his 
approaching trial, so that he may not appear in that 
day a faint-hearted craven, that he be not then found 
with those who 

" With coward guilt and pallid fear 

To rocks and mountains fly, 
And justly dread the vengeful fate 

That howls along the sky." 



MANLY VIRTUES. 



77 



Canst thou consent to appear thus, then aifd there? 
What ! when through his grace, now vouchsafed unto 
thee in Christ Jesus, it is in thy power to prepare 
thyself to meet thy judge with an unfaltering confi- 
dence, and in the presence of the universe of men 
and angels, amid the wreck of matter and the crash 
of worlds, to show thyself a man ? 

Does that day seem to thee afar off ? Among the 
dim and indistinct shadows of futurity ? And dost 
thou therefore dally with the moments lent to thee 
by thy God for the very purpose of enabling thee to 
meet the retributions of eternity with a steady coun- 
tenance and an unruffled brow ? Is that manly % 
The day of judgment is afar off ; is it ? Canst thou 
tell how far ? How far from him that died yester- 
day ? From thyself, who mayst die to-morrow ? 

Full well does the death-bed of every individual 
give assurance of the manner in which he will meet his 
judge. We have but to ask the question, How did 
he leave this world, and the answer sets at rest the 
question, How will he meet his judge ? What is a 
manly death % It certainly is not his who trembles 
as the hour draws near, falters, " I'm not prepared," 
and at last, when he can stay no longer, crawls into 
his grave like some poor slave scourged to his dun- 
geon. Nor yet is that a manly death where the lamp 
of life goes out in heedless indifference. 

To leap into the dark, into darkness that may be 
felt, when light might be had to dispel that darkness, 
is surely anything but manly. A heathen to whom 
his own immortality is more than questionable, nay, 
a brute beast, might die thus. 



78 



SERMONS. 



A manly death is tranquillity and peace arising from 
an unfaltering trust in the merits of the atoning 
blood when the world is fading away. Nay, it is 
triumph in the agonies of dissolving nature ; it is the 
victory of the undying spirit when the frail casket 
that a while inclosed it is crumbling into dust. 

Such is manly character in its principles, its devel- 
opment, and its triumphs. Let its foundation be laid 
in youth, let growing years add to its consistency and 
its strength, and death shall prove its crowning hour, 
bringing forth the topstone with shouting, Grace, 
grace unto it ! 

While our subject may teach all who are here 
present, of either sex and of every age, the great les- 
son, in whatever sphere we move there to show our 
gratitude to God by a faithful performance of the 
duties devolving upon us, it addresses itself specially 
to thee who art about to enter upon the bustling act- 
ivity of life, around whom are clustering the affec- 
tions of a father and a mother's love, upon whom the 
republic looks as her safeguard and her glory, unto 
whom God says, " My son, give me thy heart," to thee 
comes the language of entreaty from all these sources. 
For the sake of thy father, that his name be not dis- 
honored, and that thou mayest bring down his gray 
hairs with rejoicing to the grave ; for the sake of thy 
country, that she may rejoice over thee ; for the sake 
of the world, that it may be the better for thy having 
lived in it ; for thine own sake, that thou mayest be 
happy here and hereafter ; in whatever station God 
shall place thee, here show thyself a man ! 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 79 



III. 

GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 

PEEACHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF PRESI- 
dent taylor. 

Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him ? who will sat 
unto him, What doest thou ? — Job ix, 12. 

A second time has God, in his inscrutable provi- 
dence, called away the chief magistrate of this repub- 
lic. A former president died in one short month 
from the day of his inauguration. The nation is now 
called to mourn a like fearful bereavement. He who 
was ever fearless in the hour of danger, of whom it 
was said he " never surrenders," has met the last ene- 
my and now lies low in the dust. Not mine the task 
nor this the place to pronounce his eulogy. Nor need 
I recount his history. That is written in the nation's 
annals. From the day when, borne on the breezes of 
heaven, came wafted to every dwelling the almost 
romantic tidings of victory after victory, even down to 
the hour when the lightning bore in every direction 
the heavy tidings of his sudden death, his history 
is familiar. Hushed be the voice of party spirit ; si- 
lenced, for a while at least, the discord of political 
strife. As men, as fellow-countrymen, as brethren 
of the family of the republic, our loss is one, our 
grief mutual. It is the head of the nation that God 
has taken away, it is our chief magistrate that is in 



80 



SERMONS. 



his grave. There let all acerbity of feeling, all harsh 
judgment, all prejudice be buried with him. How- 
ever much men may differ in their estimate of his 
qualifications for the office to which he was called by 
the popular voice, none can deny him rectitude of 
intention, courage, decision, and energy on all these 
occasions of his public life in which his duty was ap- 
parent. Posterity will do him justice. History will 
inscribe his name with unerring precision in that rank 
of the world's great men to which .he is entitled. 
Undue partiality on the one hand and unjust preju- 
dice on the other, will give way to the realities of 
sober truth. 

And what of the undying spirit that a while ani- 
mated the now lifeless clay that formed the pageant 
in the sad solemnities of the funeral hour? That 
spirit has returned to God who gave it, to the judge 
of all the earth who doeth right, infinite alike in wis- 
dom and in justice. 

In view of the station he occupied, the short time 
he enjoyed the highest honor in the gift of his coun- 
trymen to confer, the peculiar situation of our na- 
tional affairs, and his sudden departure, it is fitting 
that these services should be devoted to this subject, 
and we accordingly appropriate the theme suggested 
by the language of the text, God's sovereignty as 
evinced by the ravages of death, " Behold, he taketh 
away, who can hinder him ? " and man's duty with 
reference to that sovereignty, "Who will say unto 
Mm , What doest thou ? " 

1. He taketh away. Death is spoken of as a king, 
a monster, a tyrant. It is mere poetry. Death has no 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IX JUDGMENT. 



81 



claim to either of these titles, and is, in fact, a mere 
ministering servant of the Almighty. Death receives 
his commission from the ruler of the universe. That 
commission is always special in its direction, positive 
irj its requirement, unfailing in its fulfillment. The 
hand of violence may hurry his approach, and vice 
will shorten the career of the wicked. What then ? 
The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. By him the veiy 
hams of your head are all numbered. Without him 
not a sparrow falls to the ground. So also the com- 
mandment with promise holds out long life to the 
obedient, and length of days, it is said, is in the right 
hand of wisdom. The weary wheels of life, in some 
instances, as if worn out by their own Motion, ap- 
pear without cause to stand still. But what saiththe 
record \ Is there not an appointed time to man upon 
earth I Are not his days also like the days of a hire- 
ling. By whose fiat is the silver cord loosened, the 
pitcher broken at the fountain, the wheel at the cis- 
tern. It is written, thou tamest man to destruction. 
The language of the text is, H Behold, he taketh 
away." Then follows the question, Who can hinder 
him ! Ah, who? Ingenuity has devised schemes 
innumerable. Science has lent her aid and persever- 
ance has ransacked creation to discover an elixir or 
to compound a panacea that might lengthen life and 
ward off the dart of the Almighty's messenger. Pre- 
posterous undertaking ! Lamentable evidence of 
man's degradation and of the depth of human de- 
pravity. It is the creature attempting to cope with 
the creator, an insect contending with Jehovah, a 

worm battling with omnipotence. 

6 



82 



SERMONS. 



Who can hinder him ? Strength, genius, beauty, 
indiscriminately are called, and they all obey the 
summons. Infancy, youth, manhood, are equally and 
alike powerless to resist his mandate. Yain, when 
the hour is come, are the entreaties of affection, the 
tears of friendship, the agony of love. Cherubim 
and a flaming sword turn every way to repel the 
hand that for itself or for another would pluck death's 
antidote from the tree of life. From the sleeping 
dust of the unnumbered myriads, the vast majority 
of Adam's descendants who lie beneath the sward, 
there is coming up perpetually the cry, 

" Ye living men, come view the ground 

Where ye must shortly lie. 
Princes, this clay must be your bed 

In spite of all your towers ; 
The tall, the wise, the reverend head 

Shall lie as low as ours." 

But not only in the fact that he taketh away and 
none can hinder him, is seen the sovereignty of God. 
It is specially visible in the time, the manner, the 
circumstances of death's visitations. There, upon the 
untried vision of an infant has just fallen the light 
of heaven. See, those eyes are closed again ; in this 
world of grief unconscious of a tear. Full of terror 
is an infant's death : so lovely, so spotless ! Lamb- 
like innocence. Eead in its now distorted features, 
its livid lip, its stiffened form, the effects of the pri- 
meval curse, the evidence of man's apostasy and fall. 
But gaze no longer there ; look away to the spirit- 
land. The little bud bursts into full bloom, into 
ever during fragrance and perennial beauty in the 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 



83 



paradise of God. Or mark again, as the first perils 
of infancy are past, and the little feet are beginning 
to obey the wishes of the soul, exulting in the power 
of locomotion, and the lips are rejoicing in the strange 
mystery of speech, the icy hand of death rudely tears 
away the tendrils that twined around the mother's 
heart, and covers with a dark eclipse the sunshine of 
the father's soul. Is it well with the child ? Yes, it 
is well with the child. Whom the Lord loveth die 
young. But strong the fortitude, more than merely 
human, the resignation that with the Shunammite 
mother, when her little one sat upon her knees till 
noon and then died, replies in answer to the question, 
" It is well ;" that with the crushed spirit of the man 
of Uz in his heartrending bereavement exclaims, 
" The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, 
blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Instances have occurred, not frequent indeed, but 
sufficiently numerous to evince the dread sovereignty 
of Jehovah, when death's commission has been di- 
rected to the halls of merriment, the marriage party, 
the bridal feast. Shall this joyousness be broken in 
.upon so ruthlessly ? Must grace, virtue, loveliness, 
depart at an hour so untimely ? Even so. Take 
away the tokens of affection. Displace the insignia 
of happiness. Send for him who performs the last 
sad offices. Bid him prepare the shroud, and make 
ready the coffin, and dig the grave. Remove those 
flowers, or let them remain. Weave them into a 
funeral wreath, fit emblem of the beauty and the 
evanescence of the departed. Then, again, O fearful 
hour, death comes to the mother when she feels for 



84 



SERMONS. 



the first time her firstborn's breath. That little one 
into whose nostrils God has just breathed the breath 
of life, who dates from that moment the commence- 
ment of a never-ending existence, is left to grapple 
alone with the world's selfishness. He is not to know 
that sweetest drop in the cup of earthly happiness ? 
a mother's love. To him unknown the value of a 
mother's care, or the strength and the depth of a 
mother's affection. Her hearty blessing, the fervor 
of her prayers, the restraining influence of her tears, 
these are not for him. " Behold, he taketh away ; who 
can hinder him % " 

The husband and the father, upon whom so many 
were helplessly dependent, went forth in the morning 
blithely to his daily toil. How his soul expanded ; 
how he nerved that arm as his thoughts reverted to 
his own peaceful fireside ! Gay were his day-dreams 
as the loved ones for whom he toiled danced in his 
imagination. Alas, he shall see them again no more 
on earth. That morning salutation was the last kiss 
of earthly affection ; that matin prayer his farewell 
blessing. Go thou — it is better to go to the house of 
mourning than the house of feasting — bear the tidings 
that will spread the pall of desolation around that 
dwelling. Stay there a season ; thy religion tells thee 
to visit the widow and the fatherless in their afflic- 
tion ; perchance thou mayest minister consolation to 
the new made widow, to those children to-day father- 
less. 

Am I dealing in fiction in this sacred place ? Are 
these the mere shado wings of imagination, or are 
they stem realities of every-day occurrence? In 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 85 

sober verity are not these the flying roll which in 
vision the prophet saw inscribed within and without 
with lamentation, and mourning, and woe ? Every- 
thing else may be fiction rather than death's visita- 
tions. His messenger does his work here by what 
men call accidents, sometimes sudden as the spark 
from smitten steel ; there, by long dreary hours of 
wasting agony ; by roaring tempests and by deceitful 
calms ; by famine, by the sword, by the withering 
sirocco, by the heaving of the earthquake, by pesti- 
lence walking in darkness, and destruction wasting at 
noon-day. Who can hinder him ? Death, commis- 
sioned, finds his victims among the rich and the poor, 
the high and the low, on the ocean or on the land, in 
the camp, in the cabinet, in the hall of science, in the 
walks of philosophy, in peaceful retirement, and in 
the bustling activity of business. He has smitten 
down the foremost man of this republic by a sudden 
stroke, so sudden that the news of his sickness did 
not reach us until after the tidings of his death. On 
the day of the celebration of the national anniversary 
he participated, in apparent health, robust and vigor- 
ous, in the hilarity and joyousness of the scene. In 
less than a week's time the wires of the telegraph in 
every direction were made to echo the startling lan- 
guage of the prophet, " Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar 
hath fallen." 

Having thus contemplated the sovereignty of Je- 
hovah, as evinced by the ravages of death, we pass 
to the second part of our theme, man's duty with 
reference to that sovereignty. Who will say unto 
him, What doest thou ? 



86 



SERMONS. 



1. Evidently is suggested by the text, and reiterated 
by the revealed will of God, the duty of acknowl- 
edging his hand in these bereavements. True, man's 
self-interest demands this at all times and under all 
circumstances. But in the buoyancy of health and 
in the enjoyment of prosperity, how prone is he to 
forget the hand that feeds him, the arm that sustains 
him in existence. How true the language of the 
sacred writer, " God is not in all his thoughts." But 
when the affections of his soul are crushed within him 
by the untimely, the unexpected visit of death, then, 
if ever, there is hope that he will hear that voice 
which says, " Be still, and know that I am God." 
"Will this nation recognize and acknowledge Jeho- 
vah's hand in this dispensation of his providence ? Can 
the republic be made to feel that God hath taken 
away her chief magistrate ? Alas for us, professing 
to be a Christian people, how feeble and how faint is 
our national recognition even of the existence of a 
God. In that instrument of which we boast so 
highly, the Constitution of the United States, there is 
not even the recognition of a supreme being. We 
have party warfare and political animosities ; the 
land rings from one end to the other with the merits 
of this candidate and the failings of that. An elec- 
tion is held, appeals are made to sectional pride, to 
self-interest, to the rights of property, to every bad 
passion. The votes are counted, the result is ascer- 
tained, and the successful aspirant is declared elected. 
"What now ? Myriads are loud in their huzzas ; few 
and far between the hosannas to Him by whom kings 
reign and princes decree justice. And now he stands 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 



87 



forth upon the portico of the capitol and swears to 
defend the Constitution. Is that all % Even so. No 
note of thanksgiving diversified the ceremonies of the 
day. Not a blessing was implored. Not a petition 
for wisdom to guide, or grace to sustain the new 
made president ascended to the throne of God. And 
it has been so from the beginning. The bugbear cry 
of Church and State seems to frighten even religious 
men from their propriety in conducting our national 
affairs. The disseverance of Church and State ! "What 
does that phrase mean ? Simply that the ecclesiasti- 
cal authority and the civil arm should be kept sepa- 
rate in order that the grand experiment of the power 
of Christianity, independent of state influence and 
patronage, should have free course. To this every 
Christian heart should respond amen. Christianity 
does not depend on the arm of the civil power. She 
needs it not, asks not for it. But does it thence fol- 
low that the state needs not the protecting aegis of 
omnipotence, or shall that nullify the declaration that 
" except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh 
but in vain." Is it wise, is it becoming, that in her 
prosperity the nation should forget God and remem- 
ber him only in her adversity ; that she should dis- 
pense with religious ceremonies in the joyousness of 
an inauguration, and call for the sympathies of Chris- 
tianity only in the sad solemnities of the funeral 
hour. Not in vain the few short months of President 
Taylor's presidential career, and not in vain his un- 
timely death, if the nation learn therefrom the lesson 
in all her ways to acknowledge God. 

2. Again, the sovereignty of Jehovah, as evinced 



ss 



SERMONS. 



by the ravages of death, calls for unfeigned humilia- 
tion on the part of the living. " He taketh away, 
who can hinder him ? who will say unto him, What 
doest thou?" Throughout the extent of the vast 
empire of the Almighty there is no stranger phenom- 
enon, and none more common, than overweening arro- 
gance on the part of the insect man. Vanity and 
corruption in alliance, pride and mortality linked to- 
gether. It was pride that thinned the ranks of the 
angelic host, pride that prompted the act that closed 
the gates of paradise and brought upon our beauteous 
earth the blighting curse of God. Unrestrained, un- 
checked, whither would it have led the fallen race ? 
Soaring continually aloft would have risen the tower- 
ing Babel. Pelion would have been piled on Ossa, 
mountain on the top of mountain, until the very 
heavens had been scaled, the scepter rifled from Je- 
hovah's grasp, the crown plucked from the brow of 
omnipotence. " Thou hast said," is the accusation of 
the prophet, "thou hast said in thy heart, I will 
ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the 
stars of God. I will ascend above the height of the 
clouds. I will be like the Most High." Such, not 
always, indeed, uttered in language, is the sentiment 
of the unsubdued, unchecked spirit of man, whose 
breath is in his nostrils, of the worm that dieth and 
wasteth away, that giveth up the ghost, and where is 
he ? Go take that proud heart to the chamber of the 
unburied dead. See how low ambition lies. How 
dim the eye of genius. How revolting all that was 
once loveliness and beauty's self. Listen to that 
voice which cometh from that festering mass of cor- 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 



89 



ruption and rottenness. The dead speak eloquently 
and preach trumpet-tongued, proclaiming the van- 
ity of earthly distinction, the nothingness of human 
glory, the abominable absurdity of haughtiness and 
pride. 

And now, turning to the occasion to which we have 
devoted the services of this hour, what does this sud- 
den bereavement by the hand of an all- wise God call 
for on the part of this nation ? Humiliation, deep, 
sincere, heartfelt. Truly we are a proud people. By 
bells, bonfires, and cannon, how have we lauded our- 
selves and exulted in our prosperity. The names and 
exploits of our fathers have been the theme unceas- 
ingly of the poet and the orator, and the God of our 
fathers has been almost forgotten. So corrupted by 
unceasing sweets has become the public taste, so viti- 
ated the public ear by incessant flattery and self- 
gratulation, that scarcely now will the nation listen 
to the voice of rebuke and warning for her most no- 
torious derelictions from the path of equity and justice. 
" Tush ! " has been her language, " the country's honor 
cannot be disgraced, the national escutcheon can 
never be tarnished." Our country, right or wrong, is 
the sentiment that makes men wink at national out- 
rage and palpable injustice. " Behold, saith Baby- 
lon, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall never 
see sorrow." But what saith J ehovah ? " Her sins 
have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered 
her iniquities. In the cup that she hath filled, fill to 
her double. Therefore shall her plagues come in 
one day, death, and mourning, and famine." "What 
Christian, nay, what lover of his country, does not feel 



00 



SERMONS. 



that now when death has cut down our tallest cedar, 
it becometh us to bow in humble lowliness before Him 
who hath taken away, and to confess our national 
offenses lest the rod of his fierce anger fall more 
heavily upon us. 

3. Again. Submissive resignation under the afflict- 
ing bereavements incident to mortality is evidently 
enjoined by the language of the text. O how natu- 
ral, how common, and at the same time how futile 
and presumptuous, w T hen he taketh away, is the ex- 
clamation, " What doest thou ? " " Behold," says the 
afflicted one in the first gush of anguish, wien fully 
awake to the consciousness that he hath indeed taken 
away, " Behold and see if there be any sorrow like 
unto my sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted 
me in the day of his fierce anger % " Yes, thou 
stricken one, there is sorrow like unto thy sorrow ; a 
thousand hearts are now tasting the same bitter cup, 
and in due time it shall reach the lips of every human 
being. Dark and difficult the lesson he is teaching 
thee, but O how sweet, how full of bright and buoy- 
ant hope when thou hast fully learned it. He shall 
not return to me, but I shall go to him. "What I 
know not now I shall know hereafter. This is that 
incense of the heart whose fragrance smells to heaven. 
Very similar, in many aspects, to the grief of stead- 
fast friendship, and family affection, and conjugal 
love, is to this nation the sorrow occasioned by the 
death of her chosen chief magistrate. It occurred, 
as is ever the language of the bereaved, when we 
were least prepared for it. Just at this time, at this 
peculiar juncture of affairs, at this crisis, when to many 



GOD'S SOVEBEIGNTY IN* JUDGMENT. 91 



the prospect of the perpetuity of the Union seems over- 
cast with clouds, and dark, and gloomy, how can 
he be spared from his high office ? Who is he that 
hath nerve enough to stand upon the deck and 
breast the billows and guide the ship of state amid 
the rocks and breakers on the right hand and on the 
left. 

How solemn the admonition, how impressive the les- 
son, that comes to us from the new-made grave of the 
President. Vain is the help of man. Unerring wis- 
dom hath taken away ; infinite goodness permitted 
the blow, perchance, to save us from the curse de- 
nounced against him who trusteth in man or maketh 
flesh his arm. Unfeigned submission, therefore, and 
confident trust in God are peculiarly at this hour the 
nation's duty ; her appropriate place the dust ; her 
becoming garb, sackcloth and ashes ; her sentiment 
that of the Psalmist : " I was dumb, I opened not my 
mouth because thou didst it." 

4. Again, death's visitations call for sympathy 
and condolence with those who have been bereaved. 
They may not murmur at the will of God. It is im- 
pious to say unto him, " What doest thou ?" But no- 
where is it forbidden them to grieve with a chastened 
sorrow, to hallow with the fondest affections of the 
heart the memory of departed worth. Soothing is 
the sympathizing voice of friendship in the outburst 
of grief when fear is converted into certainty, and 
the unwelcome reality forces itself upon the soul that 
he hath indeed taken away. In nothing is the be- 
nevolence, the goodness of our Creator more signally 
manifest than in the fact that joy is increased and 



92 



SERMONS. 



sorrow lessened b y sharing it with our fellow-creatures. 
Happiness, like the bread broken by the Saviour, the 
more it is divided the more there is of it ; and the 
same Saviour hath taught us by precept and exam- 
ple that sorrow may be alleviated by weeping with 
those that weep. There is this unfortunate pecul- 
iarity in the affliction of those who occupy a high 
position in society. They are in a great measure 
shut out from the sympathies of their fellows. Be- 
cause they have wealth, and influence, and honor, we 
seem to think them exempt from those ills that press 
so heavily upon the poor and those in moderate cir- 
cumstances. But it is not so. The sorrow that has 
whelmed the presidential mansion has called forth as 
bitter tears as if the inmates had always been the 
tenants of a cottage, and had never known the honors 
or the emoluments of rank and wealth. There they 
mourn not that the President is dead ; they weep for 
the husband and the father. Of what avail to that 
desolate, widowed heart that we called to the highest 
office in our gift the partner of her affections and 
covered him with a mantle of earthly glory ! The 
star-spangled banner drooping in every direction at 
half-mast, the unnumbered yards of black crape 
shrouding public buildings and private dwellings, the 
slow booming of the melancholy guns and the solemn 
tolling of the bells, may evince an outward symbol 
of the nation's grief. Alas, they reach not the heart 
of the bereaved : they have no power to dry up a 
solitary tear. To the same source that the poorest 
and the most friendless may look for consolation, 
must they also look ; and they need, may I not add 



GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 



98 



they have, a share in the sympathies of the Christian 
community, an interest in their prayers at the throne 
of grace. 

Finally, God's sovereignty, as evinced by the rav- 
ages of death, is eminently calculated to impress man 
with a sense of his own frailty, and of the necessity 
of a preparation for that hour when it shall be said 
of him, " Behold, he taketh away." What a strange 
paradox is man ! Knowing that he must die, he acts 
as if he expected to live forever. Conscious that 
every tolling knell that falls upon his ear is but the 
- prelude to his own epitaph, that every funeral pro- 
cession in which he walks is a memento of the hour 
when for him the mourners shall go about the streets, 
that every death of which he hears is lessening the 
number between himself and the grave, his conduct is 
such as almost to induce the belief that he has come to 
believe that he shall live forever. By these solemn 
visitations God is rebuking the senseless whirl of dis- 
sipation, the animosities of political strife, the heat 
and the rancor and the madness of sectional jealousies 
and partisan warfare. Will our legislators listen to 
his voice ? May we hope that the mouldering dust 
of what was once the hero and the statesman will 
induce those upon whom devolve the cares and the 
honors of office, "in whose hands is placed the destiny 
of the nation, to put away all wrath, all bitterness, 
all malice I "Will they remember that not only to 
the party which gave them office, and not only to 
the people at large, but to that tribunal from which 
there is no appeal, whither the departed President 
has gone to render an account of his stewardship, 



94 



SERMONS. 



are they accountable for the measures they propose, 
and for the means by which they seek to carry them 
into execution ? Alas, I fear there is little reason to 
hope that even the voice of death will have this 
effect. I judge of the future by the past. Men 
high in office have been smitten down in the midst 
of their associates. Members of the cabinet have 
been hurried into the eternal world by sudden and 
terrible visitations.- Senators one after another have 
fallen in quick succession. Death has visited the 
presidential mansion before, and at his post, in their 
very midst, an ex-president groaned out the last * 
hours of a well-spent life^and in their hearing uttered 
his dying words, " this is the last of earth." After 
each of these visitations there was indeed a moment- 
ary calm ; the chaplain offered a prayer, eulogies were 
delivered, and a sedate solemnity was for a little 
while visible. But soon the cloud rose again ; the 
calm was quickly followed by a still fiercer storm ; 
the bad passions raged with intenser fury. As in 
the case of the Jewish people, in the language of the 
prophet, " I hearkened and heard, but they spake 
not aright ; no man repented him of his wickedness, 
saying, what have I done % every one turned to his 
course as the horse rusheth into the battle." There 
is too much reason to fear that so it will be again, 
and where, O where shall we look for a ray of hope 
to gild the darkness that rests upon the future of 
our beloved country. I turn to you who believe 
in the sovereignty of God, who believe in him as 
the all-wise ruler and governor of the universe, 
who know that he heareth and answereth prayer, in 



GOD'S SOVEBEIGNTY IN JUDGMENT. 95 

this hour of bereavement and impending peril, let 
the cry go up from every Christian heart, irre- 
spective of men or measures, of party preferences 
or personal predilections, "O thou who wert the 
God of our fathers, who art our God, save, save thou 
the republic ! " 



96 



SEKMONS. 



IV. 

GOD'S VINEYARD. 

« Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. — Matt, xxi, 28. 

Beautifully expressive is the figure by which the 
prophets in the olden time were wont to speak of 
God's peculiar heritage among the nations of the 
earth. They called the land of Judah God's vine- 
yard. " The house of Isjael," says the prophet, "is 
the vineyard of the Lord of hosts ;" and the Psalmist 
beseeches God to look down from heaven and behold 
and visit the vineyard which his own right hand had 
planted. Two things are specially indicated by this 
appellation, God's peculiar care for his people, and 
his right to expect fruit from them in return. " Con- 
sider," says the prophet Samuel, " how great things 
the Lord hath done for you ;" and the sweet singer of 
Israel echoes responsively, making the burden of 
many a rapturous ode, " The Lord hath done great 
things for us, whereof we are glad." So, too, the 
high and the holy one, using lips touched with fire 
from his own altar, exclaims, " What more could 
have been done for my vineyard that I have not done 
in it ? " as appealing to men and angels, to the broad 
universe, to heaven, and earth, and hell, that for the 
welfare of his people he had left nothing undone 
which infinite love could prompt or infinite power 
accomplish. " Wherefore," he continues in the lan- 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



97 



guage of sadness and disappointment, " wherefore 
when I looked that it should bung forth grapes, 
brought it forth wild grapes ? " As if he had said, 
"Was it not a reasonable expectation, had I not the 
right, after all my care and kindness, to look for good 
fruit from them for whom I had done so much ? Yet 
my vineyard brought forth wild grapes, poisonous 
berries ; their grapes were grapes of gall, and their 
clusters were bitter. 

And what has become of that goodly heritage of 
the Most High, the vineyard planted by his own right 
hand, watered by the ceaseless showers of his refresh- 
ing grace, and watched over with unslumbering vigi- 
lance ? Truly his own threatening has been fulfilled ; 
and while in what it once was we see his goodness, in 
what it now is we behold the severity of God. " I 
will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be 
eaten up ; and break down the wall thereof, and it 
shall be trodden down ; and I will lay it waste ; it 
shall not be pruned, nor digged ; but there shall come 
up briers and thorns : I will also command the clouds 
that they rain no rain upon it." And it is even so. 
" The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the 
wild beast of the field doth devour it." Borne upon 
the breeze from one generation to another is heai;d 
the wailing cry, " O God, the heathen are come into 
thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled ; 
they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. We are become 
a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision 
to them that are round about us." But O the depths 
of the riches both of the wisdom and the goodness of 
God ! How unsearchable are his judgments, and 



98 



SERMONS. 



Ms ways past finding otffc ! How true it is, " Mercy 
rejoiceth against judgment." God still hath a vine- 
yard. The hedge has indeed been taken away, the 
fence has disappeared, the middle wall of partition 
hath been broken down, the boundaries of the vine- 
vard none can find, for it is now limitless as the foot- 
stool of the Almighty, wide as the world ; yea, in 
the language of the Son of God, the field is the 
world. The message is no longer to one people, 
but to all people ; even the wilderness and the soli- 
tary place are to be made glad, the desert is to bud 
and blossom as the rose, the gospel is to be preached 
to every creature, the entire surface of our earth is to 
be cultivated as one vast vineyard, to be made the 
garden of the Lord, bearing the fruits of righteousness 
to the glory of his name. 

I. By whom is this vineyard to be cultivated? 
" Son, go work in my vineyard." 

It has always been the prerogative of the owner of 
the vineyard to select, to qualify, and to employ his 
laborers. "When the Lord's vineyard embraced but 
one little country, the land of Palestine, he chose his 
special servants from whatever rank it pleased him. 
The king descended from his throne to work for God ; 
the poet tuned his harp- and poured forth invigorating 
notes of melody for his glory. The sons of the priests 
heard his call and rejoiced to labor in the vineyard. 
Timid females were summoned from the sanctity of 
their homes, and Miriam is seen toiling hand in hand 
with Moses, and Deborah endures the burden of the 
battle with Barak. The unlettered herdman hears 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 99 

the summons ; the gatherer of sycamore fruit leaves 
the toil by which he earns his daily bread to labor 
in the vineyard, trusting that he who feeds the ravens 
will feed him. Some were sent forth on this duty in 
the vigor of manhood, others in old age ; and yet 
others, as in the case of him who watered God's heri- 
tage with tears, and hence was called the weeping 
prophet, were sanctified and ordained before their 
birth, and in childhood commissioned for their work. 
This prerogative still belongs to the Most High ; but 
now that the old hedge has been thrown down, and 
he has deigned to designate the whole earth as his 
vineyard, he exercises this prerogative in a different 
way. The tenor of the commission has been altered, 
its phraseology has been changed. It reads not now 
as of old, " Son of man, I have set thee as a watch- 
man upon the walls of Zion," but, " Go labor in my 
vineyard." It is addressed, not as in the days of the 
prophets, to one here and another there, but to all his 
people ; not to servants, but to children, to those who 
have received the spirit of adoption ; to all such, high 
and low, male and female, my son, my daughter, Go 
work to-day in my vineyard. The truth of this po- 
sition may be argued, 

1. From the extent of the vineyard. I have re- 
ferred to the Saviour's declaration, " The field is the 
world," and it is but reasonable that the number of 
laborers should be proportionate to the extent of the 
field, to the magnitude and the difficulty of the work 
to be accomplished. "When the vineyard was but a 
narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean coast, 
scarce fifty miles in width, it was not needful that 



100 



SERMONS. 



the number of laborers should be so great as when 
the boundaries were thrown down, and mountain and 
valley, city and country, from sea to sea, and from 
the river unto the ends of the earth, every spot where 
man is found, of every kingdom, and nation, and 
tongue, and people, is within the limits of that vine 
yard into which he says, " Go work." The harvest 
truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. It needs 
not in order to see the force of this remark and the 
pertinency of the prayer which the Saviour directs 
us therefore to offer unto the Lord of the harvest, it 
needs not that we limit the number of his laborers to 
those merely who have been called to lead the sacra- 
mental host. Compared with the extent of the field 
the laborers are few, even when we include in the list 
every man, woman, and child who have been made 
partakers of the grace of life. And there is, conse- 
quently, 

2. Work enough for all. He who stands idle in 
the market-place may neither plead as an excuse for 
his idleness, " no man hath hired me," nor yet, " there 
is nothing for me to do." He was hired at the time of 
his conversion ; at that hour he entered into a contract 
with the Lord of the harvest, who said unto him, 
" Work in my vineyard, and whatsoever is right that 
will I give thee." It is an impeachment of the wis- 
dom of God, a direct charge of folly upon the Lord 
of the harvest, for any man to pretend that in the 
broad vineyard he can find nothing to do, no corner 
where he may toil for his Master, no plants of right- 
eousness that he may train heavenward, no spot that 
he may clear of thorns and thistles, and that under 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



101 



his hand may be arrayed in verdant loveliness. Why 
then was he hired ? Why called % Why singled out by 
the Holy Spirit ? and why, when under the influence 
of the Spirit he applied to Christ, did Christ listen to 
his application, call him son, and say, " Go work in 
my vineyard ? " Charge not this folly upon the Holy 
One. Exuberant in his goodness as he is, causing his 
sim to shine and his rain to fall upon the just and 
upon the unjust, he does nothing, and least of all does 
he convert a sinner without design, without having 
in view an object dictated by wisdom infinite and 
unerring, an object of higher import, and beyond 
comparison more glorious than the welfare of an in- 
dividual, or the personal ease, comfort, and happiness 
of the sinner thus saved by grace. 

3. In confirmation of this view of the subject re- 
call the past ; advert for a moment to that blessed 
hour when you first received the assurance of his 
saving mercy ; how, after the throes of the new 
birth, when first for thee the angels round the throne 
rejoiced, did the anxious inquiry pierce heaven and 
enter into the ears of the Lord of the vineyard, 
" What wilt thou have me to do ? " I will venture 
the assertion that it never occurred to one just con- 
verted from the error of his way to question whether 
he should do something for the cause of God. He 
asked not, Shall I do anything ? but, What shall I do ? 
where shall I labor % In this respect there is a re- 
markable uniformity in the experience of all God's 
children. Differing as they do in almost everything 
else ; widely diversified as were the instrumentalities 
employed, the time, the place, the manner of their 



102 



SERMONS. 



conversion, in this respect they are all actuated by 
the same feeling. The question of Saul of Tarsus, 
when first he knew that it was indeed the voice of 
the Nazarene that arrested him, has been asked in 
substance by all in like cases, though in an endless 
variety of phrase. It is a grand mistake into which 
the world and the Church seem to have fallen, that 
upon the professed minister of Christ, the pastor at 
home and the missionary abroad, devolves the entire 
duty of cultivating God's vineyard. TThat are' the 
others to do ! Must they be drones in the hive ? 
Citizens who have naught to do but look on and list- 
en to the din of arms and the shout of the victors ? 
What kind of an army is that which is composed only 
of standard-bearers ? Has the Lord sent any man 
into the vineyard and said, Go, lie down beneath its 
grateful shade and feast upon its luscious fruit ? No, 
it is, " Go woi'lc." 

4. The entire teaching of the ISTew Testament con- 
firms this view of the subject. The " light of the world " 
and the " salt of the earth n were designations given by 
Christ himself to his disciples, and intended to apply 
not to the twelve apostles only, but " unto you, and 
to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as 
many as the Lord our God shall call." And mark 
here how significantly Christ teaches the necessity of 
active employment in his vineyard. He speaks of 
the fearful possibility that the salt may lose its savor, 
and be cast out and trampled under foot as utterly 
worthless. And, as if fearing the abuse of his meta- 
phor, and that some might imagine that they might 
stand still and shine, he explains by assuring us that 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



103 



it is by good works, made visible, seen by others, that 
our light shineth and God is glorified. How repeat- 
edly, too, he dwells upon the same truth in his para- 
bles ! The young convert, what is he ? He is one 
who has put his hand to the plow ; a toilsome task 
is before him, the preparation of the ground for the 
seed time now at hand, and for the hoped-for harvest. 
Resting from his work, and abandoning his toil, nay, 
not that, but looking back, he is not fit for the king- 
dom of God. The householder goes out early in the 
morning to hire laborers; he goes again on the same 
errand at the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hour, 
and he pays them their wages, not as they go along 
by murmuring streams and pleasant shades, but when 
their work is done / Do you say, Lord, I want to be 
happy, I want to enjoy religion ; I have come in from 
plowing or feeding cattle, let me sit down and rest ! 
Nay, rather, saith the Master, make ready wherewith 
I may sup, and gird thyself, seeing thou hast left the 
work assigned thee in the field, and serve me, and 
afterward thou shalt eat and drink. ISTow listen to 
the Saviour's practical explanation of the parable : 
" So likewise ye when ye shall have done all those 
things which are commanded you, say, We are un- 
profitable servants, we have done that which was our 
duty to do." We are only saved at last by his grace 
unmerited and free. Unprofitable servants ! "Who 
are they, and what their fate ? I see one, the Master 
has drawn his portrait ; he has one talent committed 
to his stewardship, and no disciple ever had less. He 
has not wasted that talent by pampering himself, nor 
by viciously leading other laborers into idleness or 



104 



SERMONS, 



inactivity ; he has taken very good care of it ; lie has 
kept it to himself, so that scarcely one of his nearest 
friends knew that he had a talent at all. With self- 
complacency he hands it back uninjured, untarnished. 
Lo, there, he says, thou hast that is thine. Is it not 
well ? Ay, it is well, contrasted with his conduct 
who wasted his Lord's goods, whose talent was per- 
verted and abused, rusted all over, and the Master's 
image and superscription so defaced as to be no longer 
legible. Well, is it ? So thinks he, perhaps, and so 
think many who have acted like him and worse, but 
so thinks not the Master. Take the talent from him, 
and cast ye not the wicked, not the hypocritical, but 
the unprofitable servant, cast him into outer dark- 
ness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
" And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the 
things which I say ? " It is the doer of the work that 
has the promise of the blessing ; and every man, min- 
ister or layman, with ten talents or with one, in what- 
ever part of the vineyard he may be employed, shall 
receive his own reward, not in accordance with his 
profession, or his reputation, or his own estimate, but 
according to his own labor, 

5. The theory and the practice of the early Chris- 
tians were in accordance with this sentiment. In 
the days of the first persecution, soon after the shed- 
ding of the blood of the protomartyr, u they," that 
is, the lay members of the Church, for the historian 
expressly says, " except the apostles," " w^ere scat- 
tered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and 
Samaria, in Phoenicia, in Cyprus, in Antioch ; yea, 
they went everywhere preaching the word ; and in 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



105 



the lips of any one of them, as appropriately as in 
those of Paul, was the language, "We are laborers to- 
gether with God." In the account of the prelimina- 
ries to the glorious baptism of the Holy Ghost on the 
day of Pentecost ; in tracing, if I may so speak, that 
effect to its cause, the inspired writer conducts us to 
an upper room where a prayer-meeting was held, at 
which were present not only the apostles, but the 
women and Mary the mother of Jesus. These all 
continued, with one accord, in prayer and supplica- 
tion ; and who will dare to say that the little Church 
and the world was more indebted to the eloquence of 
Peter than to the supplications of the women ? They 
were all laborers in God's vineyard, and herein was 
verified that saying of the Lord Jesus, "one soweth 
and another reapeth." That was an honorable desig- 
nation by which Paul addresses some one, we know 
not whom, when he styles him " true yoke-fellow." 
Yoke-fellow ! And mark now with what pertinacity 
the apostle clings to the idea of working in God's 
vineyard. " I entreat thee, true yoke-fellow, help 
those women which labored with me in the gospel, 
with Clement also, and other my fellow-laborers 
whose names are in the book of life." As if the book 
of life were nothing else but one great muster-roll 
oontaining the names of laborers ! Some of those 
names he gives us, and not what the world deems 
honorable are the designations by which he would 
have them known by the Church of Christ in all 
ao-es. Our sister Phebe was a servant of the Church 
at Cenchrea. Priscilla and Aquila were Paul's help- 
ers in Christ Jesus. Tryphena and Tryphoso labored 



106 



SERMONS. 



in the Lord. It is written, too, of that other female 
who was taken sick and died at Joppa, around whose 
dead body the widows stood weeping, " She was full of 
good works. Her sphere seems to have been com- 
paratively private and unostentatious. They showed 
the coats and the garments which, for the poor, Dor- 
cas made while she was with them. So, being dead, 
she yet speaketh. Numbered with the countless 
myriads who have heeded the command, " Go work nr 
my vineyard," she is with those whom the voice heard 
by John pronounces blessed, which benediction is 
ratified by the Spirit, and his reason given for it : 
" Yea, for they rest from their labors, and their works 
do follow them." But, 

II. Where shall I labor ? What shall I do I 
As respects the first of these questions, if we sup- 
pose it to refer to the various divisions and subdi- 
visions of the Church of Christ ; in other words, if 
you ask in which of these inclosures you shall labor, 
I answer, It is not for me to settle that question. 
My business is not, strangely as it may sound to some 
of you, first or chiefly to build up a sect, to win men 
into our inclosure, to make Methodists. I thank 
God mine is a higher and a holier calling. It is to 
persuade rebels to become reconciled to God, to urge 
upon all to heed my Master's voice, and go into his 
vineyard and work. Two or three hints, however, 1 
will offer, which may help you to settle a question 
which you alone can settle with your God. 

1. As a general thing, no one, without a very good 
reason, should leave that branch of the Church 



GOD'S VINEYAKD. 



107 



wherein God's holy spirit first found him. It seems 
to me that the fact of his conversion among any peo- 
ple is primary evidence that the Lord of the vineyard 
has work for him in that department. Otherwise 
we may be permitted to suppose that he who has all 
power in heaven and in the earth, who controls all 
agencies, of whom it is said that the king's heart is 
in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water he 
turneth it whithersoever he will, that he would have 
ordered matters otherwise than he has done, and 
brought about a different result. It is certainly not 
a good reason to seek some other communion because 
they appear to have a pleasanter quarter in the vine- 
yard: much less because there some selfish feeling 
may be better gratified, some anxious desire for 
wealth, or honor, or what this world calls respecta- 
bility. These things are self-evident to the worldling ; 
much more so to him who has responded to the Mas- 
ter's call : " I go, sir ! " 

2. Still, in general terms, I remark that it is every 
man's duty to attach himself to that branch of the 
Christian Church which comes nearest to the apos- 
tolic standard, where the doctrines taught and the 
measures pursued and the discipline enforced are, in 
his judgment, most nearly in accordance with the 
mind and will of Christ. I say in his judgment, for 
in this matter he is to call no man master ; and on 
this point there have been, and I suppose will be, 
differences of opinion among the wisest and the best 
until the end of the world. Very likely more work, 
in the aggregate, is done in Christ's broad vineyard 
than there would be if, instead of divisions and sub- 



108 



% 

SERMONS. 



divisions, the entire body of Ms laborers were one 
agglomerated mass, and no room for holy emulation. 
And here suffer me to add that it is very possible that 
in every one of the religions sects of the day you may 
find something that you do not exactly like, some 
prudential regulations that do not quadrate precisely 
with your own views, something that you would have 
otherwise. "What then ? " What is the chaff to the 
wheat, saith the Lord ? " Mere mint, anise, and cum- 
min must not be allowed to cover up the weightier 
matters of the law. For no little reason, for nothing 
temporal in its nature or merely prudential in its 
character, nay, for nothing short of doctrine believed 
to be fundamentally erroneous, or practice proved un- 
scriptural, should any laborer presume to leave that 
part of the vineyard in which God's providence has 
placed him. When he does this, whatever be his 
motives, and on them it is not our province to sit in 
judgment, the party to which he attaches himself will 
regard him with suspicion, those he leaves with some- 
thing worse ; and then he needs most especially the 
conviction of heart that he has followed the path of 
duty, and ought not to rest without the assurance 
that his ways please the Lord. 

3. I remark again that the question, To what 
Church shall I attach myself? being unsettled by either 
of the considerations to which I have adverted, the 
honest laborer will make its answer depend upon an- 
other, and that is, Where may I toil most successfully ? 
where may I do most for the glory of God ? There 
are doubtless differences in this respect. " For the 
body is not one member but many," and there are, 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



109 



says the apostle, diversities of gifts, and differences 
of administrations. Just as it is in mere worldly 
pursuits : to one, the mechanic arts ; to another, man- 
ufactures ; and to yet another the pursuits of trade 
offer inducements founded on natural predilections. 
This man prefers to cultivate the soil ; that, to culti- 
vate the youthful intellect. Ruinous in many in- 
stances, and unhappy in all, would be the transposition 
of these men. He who gallantly plows the ocean 
would possibly make but an indifferent plowman in 
a stubble-field. He whose taste leads him to study 
the unravelment of the law would perhaps never 
acquire the skill necessary to cut off a diseased limb, 
or to compound a healing draught that shall soothe the 
distracted nerves or lull the raging fever. So in the 
different departments of God's great vineyard. Some, 
beyond a peradventure, may be more useful in this, 
others in that denomination. He whose eye is single 
will on this, as on every other question, be full of 
light ; and in the fear of God, and by the promised 
guidance of his spirit, he may so settle it as to merit 
no reproach, either in life or in death, in this world 
- or the next, from his conscience, his fellow-laborers, 
or his judge. In all thy ways acknowledge him and 
he will direct thy paths. Son, go work to-day in 
my vineyard ! But having found my place there, and 
my name being enrolled in the list of laborers, what 
shall I do ? 

1. The Master will tell thee. It is his prerogative. 
It is not a matter to be decided by chance or at ran- 
dom, by the partiality of friends or by one's own incli- 
nation. In the ten thousand callings in any of which 



110 



SERMONS. 



a Christian may lawfully engage, it is his to decide 
the question. Very general indeed is the impression, 
though it was not always so, that no man ought to be 
a missionary or a minister without a satisfactory evi- 
dence that Christ has called him to that work. Even 
professors in theological schools at length acknowl 1 
edge, in theory at any rate, that none but God can 
make a minister. But is it not equally true that 
no Christian ought to engage in any pursuit, pro- 
fession, business, without the consciousness that such 
is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning him ? 
There is, alas for us ! there is a great deal of practical 
atheism not only in the world, but in the very bosom 
of the Christian Church. We profess to believe in 
God's omnipresence, in his universal government, in 
his ever-watchful providence, that he can do whatso- 
ever pleaseth him, that he will do what is right ; nay, 
we have transferred into our creed from the Master's 
lips the astounding declaration, " Even the hairs of 
your head are all numbered." Tet in how many 
instances do we act as if this were all fable, an exag- 
geration, an extravagant hyperbole ! Instead of say- 
ing with the Psalmist, " thou wilt guide me by thy 
counsel," believing and relying upon it, we take into 
our own hands the guidance of our destiny, forget 
the pilot who has taught us to say, My father, thou 
art the guide of my youth ; grasp the rudder and steer 
upon the trackless ocean by the light of our own fitful 
fancy. 

2. What shall I do ? The Master will tell thee. 
It is his province. No one else can tell thee. No 
other being in the universe knows what post thou art 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



Ill 



best qualified to fill. The wisest men may err griev- 
ously in the advice they give you on this point, the 
dearest friends may be utterly mistaken. Of one 
thing be well assured, there is work in God's vine- 
yard for you to do. Nay, take it as an axiom that 
needs no argument, that for every converted sinner 
Christ has special work, work that no one else can do 
without leaving his own undone. Then to suppose 
that the Lord of the vineyard will not designate that 
work to him who asks, is as monstrously absurd as to 
imagine that he has no work for him, or that he looks 
with indifference upon the cultivation of a vineyard 
watered by his tears and purchased by his blood. I 
speak not now to those who were sent into the vine- 
yard after they had made choice of a profession and 
were settled in life, though doubtless it becomes 
many such to ponder the question, Am I where Christ 
would have me to be ? Yet if it be not an unlawful 
business, and if it be one wherein God may be glori- 
fied, let every man abide in the same calling wherein 
5 m was called. But those who have not yet settled this 
question, I beseech by the many fearful wrecks that 
strew the coast between this earth and heaven, by 
the multitudes who are standing, or rather lying 
down, listlessly in the vineyard, stumbling-blocks 
over which others are falling, themselves soon to fall 
never to rise again ; nay, by the inercies of God, I 
beseech you take heed lest forgetting God, and treat- 
ing thyself in what seemed to thee a pleasant, easy, 
honorable spot in his vineyard, there ring in thine 
ears and chill thy soul that still small voice heard of 
old by him who hid in Dothan's lonely cave, that ter- 



112 



SERMONS. 



rible voice, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" a pre- 
cursor of that still more terrible question at the 
judgment-seat of Christ, who required this at your 
hand. You tell me you are satisfied Christ has not 
directed you to forsake country, and home, and father, 
and mother, and preach to the heathen ; you have 
not heard his voice saying, Here in thine own land 
proclaim the glad tidings of salvation ; and you say, 
God forbid that I should run without being sent. 
Amen. May God forbid it in your case and in that 
of every other man. But hearken. Be as conscien- 
tious with reference to every other profession as you 
profess to have been in this. Run in no direction 
without being sent. Be satisfied that your business 
is also your divine calling. 

3. What shall I do ? The Master will tell thee. 
He is telling thee now. He speaks by his spirit, by 
his providences, plainly and intelligibly, to him who 
lends a willing ear. To one he saith, " I will send thee 
far hence unto the Gentiles," and lo ! the path opens 
wonderfully before him, and he hears an unmistaka- 
ble voice saying, " This is the way, walk thou in it." 
I gaze there upon the pallid cheek, and mark the 
restless ravages of disease, wasting slowly away the 
energies and drinking up the spirit of one sent into 
the vineyard early in the morning ; and in answer to 
a question like that proposed by Peter concerning 
John, " Lord, what shall this man do ? lo, Jesus 
saith, I will show him how great things he must suf- 
fer for my name's sake." By him is he teaching that 
there is work in the vineyard for the weak as well as 
the strong ; and that God may be glorified in the 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



113 



sick-chamber as well' as in the battle-field. " The 
Master is come and calleth for thee ! " It is for thee, 
with the child Samuel, reverently to listen to his 
voice and say, ' ' Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth." 
To that young man he is saying, " Sell all that thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and come follow me.*" 
To this one, " Let the dead bury their dead,, but go 
thou and preach the kingdom of God." To another, 
" See, I have set before thee an open door ;" thou hast 
talents and education, thy tongue is as the pen of 
a ready writer. Go, plead for the oppressed, and 
show the world that even thus one may work for 
God ; or be a statesman or a jurist who seeketh not 
honor from men ; or it is thine to minister to the dis- 
eased body, and, still in God's vineyard, while the 
patient looks up trustfully into thine eye, thou mayest 
let him see that thou art at work for Christ, and there 
do thou point him to the physician of souls. So, too, 
the merchant, the tradesman, the teacher, the farmer, 
the mariner, the mechanic — youth, manhood, and old 
age, all in their several spheres, diligent in business, 
but still in the Master's vineyard, and while fervent 
in spirit serving the Lord. It is theirs to hold up 
the hands of those whom God hath called to lead his 
host, to let their light shine, to pray, to provide the 
munitions of war, to make unto themselves friends of 
the mammon of unrighteousness, to be God's stew- 
ards, almoners of the silver and the gold, which is all 
his. Looking up, earnestly and honestly, to him who 
hath promised liberally wisdom to him that lacketh ; 
waiting for and watching the indications of his provi- 
dence, and following them, every laborer will find 

8 



114 



SERMONS. 



himself in that quarter of the vineyard, and doing 
just that work which God would have him do. 

III. " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." 
When? 

1. To-day ! This command, like every other em- 
anating from the same source, knows nothing of the 
future, of next year, or to-morrow. Around the lit- 
tle word now the energies of the Holy Spirit, his re- 
quirements, his promises, his entreaties, all cluster. 
Now is the accepted time, to-day the day of salva- 
tion. He says, Go work to-day in my vineyard ; the 
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, 
and ye know not what shall be on the morrow. The 
commandment says nothing about getting ready ; it 
hints not at the necessity of preparation. It assumes 
the fact that there is work for all and work now. 
Does it preclude, then, honest industry in the affairs 
of life ? Does it forbid the scientific pursuit, the 
classical research ? Nay, it enjoins all these things, 
diligence in business, attendance to reading, study. 
But mark, it makes them all secondary and subordi- 
nate. These things ye are to do and not to leave the 
others undone. The Master said, " Labor not for the 
meat that perisheth." He meant by it, make not that 
the chief object of your toil. Provide things honest 
in the sight of all men, but labor for God. Seek first 
his kingdom, its advancement and its glory ; his 
righteousness, its full enjoyment in your own soul 
and its diffusion among your fellow-men. It is writ- 
ten, too, that if the soul be without knowledge it is 
not good, and " through desire, a man having sepa- 



GOD'S VINEYARD. 



115 



rated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with, all 
wisdom." When ? Not hefore he goes into the vine- 
yard that he may prepare himself to labor, but while 
he is there working for God. Why? Not for the 
gratification of his own ambition, or to please his 
fellow-men, his father or mother, benefactor or friend, 
but that he may be able to say, " Lord, thy pound 
hath gained ten pounds ; " and in the mean time, and 
until the day of reckoning, to convince as well as to 
exhort the gainsayers, and show himself a workman 
that needed not to be ashamed. " Son, go work to- 
day in my vineyard." 

2. To-day, all day ! from the hour of thine en- 
gagement till the night cometh when no man can 
work, and then the resting time will come. 

(1.) Such are the terms of the compact, and no 
promise of reward is made to him who, beginning 
well, faints and grows weary, ceases from his toil 
and says, I'll rest now, or I'll do a little on my own 
account. I have worked for God's glory, I'll seek 
mine own. Not unto him who began well is the 
promise ; but what saith it, " He that endureth to 
the end shall be saved ;" eternal life is the reward of 
patient continuance in welldoing: and unto every 
laborer in his vineyard God is saying, as he said of 
old to them who toiled at Smyrna, " Be thou faith- 
ful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." 

(2.) All day ! Even so. Seems it a long time ? 
Nay, that cannot be. With many of you it is after- 
noon ; for some the eleventh hour has come ; to all the 
night cometh. By the best of us, a portion of the 
short day of life, God knows how large a portion, 



116 



"SERMONS. 



was gone irrecoverably, wasted, ere we heeded the 
Master's call. He pardoned that. He said, after all, 
as he is now saying in endearing tenderness, Son, 
daughter, go, go work in my vineyard. From the 
confines of the grave, from the judgment-seat of Christ, 
from the realities of the eternal world, we shall look 
back with one sentiment ; how brief was my career 
on earth, how little time had I to work for God, how 
short my day. 

(3.) The night cometh. When ? Alas for us, who 
shall answer that question ? Not as in the natural 
world may we calculate how many hours are yet re- 
maining. The sun sets not always behind the west- 
ern hills. For many, night cometh before noon-day. 
Go, therefore, my son, go work to-day in my vineyard. 



NATIONAL SINS. 



117 



V. 

NATIONAL SINS. 

Shall I not tisit for these things ? saith the Lord ; and shall 

NOT MY SOUL BE AVENGED ON SUCH A NATION AS THIS ? — Jer. V, 9. 

The text is equivalent to a direct and positive 
assertion that God will punish nations for unrepented 
national sins. I will visit for these things ; my soul 
shall be avenged on such a nation as this. The voice 
of history illustrates this truth, the word of God 
confirms it, and the attributes of the Almighty im- 
peratively require it at his hands. 

It is common indeed for the philosopher and thQ 
historian to account for the calamities that have be- 
fallen any people, for the desolations that have over- 
taken them, and for their final destruction, by advert- 
ing to secondary causes and resting there. But he 
who believes in the moral government of God, in his 
superintending, ever-watchful providence, will trace 
to his hand the pestilence that walketh in darkness, 
the famine, the desolating flood, the din of battle. 
God himself speaks of what he calls his four sore 
judgments, the sword, and the famine, and the noi- 
some beast, and the pestilence, and so again I quote 
his language to Jhis own people : "I will bring a 
sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my 
covenant ; and when ye are gathered together within 
your cities I will send the pestilence among you, and 



118 



SEKMONS. 



ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy." 
Thus the history of the world, the decay and down- 
fall of nations, attest the truth of the proposition 
before ns. God punishes for national offenses. His 
statute book declares that it shall be so always ; and 
the unchangeable holiness of his character, his eter- 
nal hatred of sin, the abominable thing which his 
soul hateth, assure us that it cannot be otherwise. 

I. From the nature of the case, national punishments 
must be inflicted in this world. It is different with 
individuals. Man may pass on through a long life, 
filling up slowly the measure of his iniquities, health 
rioting in his veins, in possession of more than heart 
can wish, pride compassing him about as a chain, 
violence covering him as a garment ; a quiet death 
may be his, and a splendid mausoleum with a mag- 
nificent epitaph may receive his body when the spirit 
has gone tremblingly to meet its recompense in 
another world; but nations, as such, are unknown 
there. There is neither Jew nor Greek, and, conse- 
quently, national punishments must be inflicted 
here. 

Necessarily, therefore, these judgments fall fre- 
quently upon the innocent as well as upon the guilty, 
upon the just and upon the unjust. In the great city 
of Nineveh, which but for their timely penitence 
God would have destroyed utterly, there were, as 
himself tells us, more than one hundred and twenty 
thousand persons utterly ignorant, and consequently 
in a great degree guiltless, but who, nevertheless, 
would have been swept away when swift destruction 



NATIONAL SINS. 



119 



should have fallen npon the city. Is there unright- 
eousness with God, then ? If ay, far from it ; but 
herein we have an argument for a future day of reck- 
oning, when every man shall be rewarded according 
to his works ; when the question, Shall not the judge 
of all the earth do right ? shall be visibly answered in 
the affirmative in the presence of an assembled uni- 
verse. So we read, when God's anger was kindled 
against Israel, the prophet was sent unto King David 
with this message : " Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee 
three things, choose one of them : either three years 
of famine, or three months to be destroyed before thy 
foes, or three days the pestilence in the land, and the 
angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts 
of Israel ;" and David, in a great strait, chose the 
latter. " Let me now fall," said he, " into the hand of 
the Lord, for very great are his mercies ; but let me 
not fall into the hand of man." So the Lord sent 
pestilence upon Israel ; and although the king and the 
court clothed themselves in sackcloth, and confessed 
their sins, and prayed, the destroying angel was not 
arrested until there had perished of Israel seventy 
thousand men. 

Yery affecting, and a striking illustration of the 
proposition before us, was David's prayer when the 
plague was raging among the people : " Let thy hand, 
I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me and on my 
father's house. Even I it is that have sinned and 
done evil indeed ; but as for these sheep, what have 
they done ? " Yery probably of the entire seventy 
thousand who died of the pestilence — sheep, as the 
king called them — no one had been directly a partic- 



120 SERMONS. 

ipant in the transgression which called down this 
vengeance from the Most High. It was a national 
punishment inflicted for a national sin. 

Not always as in this case, however, is so clearly 
visible the hand of God when his judgments are 
abroad in the earth. Not always is it the province 
of a finite creature to say, that was the sin, this the 
punishment. It is not the usual method of the Al- 
mighty to give to man the choice of famine, or war, 
or pestilence ; and very seldom is the destroying angel 
seen, as he was on this occasion, by David and by 
the prophet Gad at the threshing floor of Ornan the 
Jebusite. As in the case of individuals, it is right to 
disclaim all purposes of judgment, so it is quite as 
unwise and more impious, when God's judgments are 
abroad in the earth, to refuse to learn righteousness. 
It is practically to dethrone Jehovah, to banish him 
from his own creation, in the time of war to look no 
farther than to the mismanagement of earthly rulers ; 
to attribute the ravages of the pestilence to a want of 
proper precaution or to some peculiar state of the 
atmosphere, as if the atmosphere were God ; or when 
famine rages to see in it nothing more than a strange 
derangement of the seasons, the blight, the mildew, 
the rot, as if all these things were not under the im- 
mediate, the direct controlling influence of Him, 
without whom not a sparrow falls unnoticed ; who 
changeth the times and the seasons, who doeth what 
he will in the armies of heaven and among the child- 
ren of men, and of whom the prophet asks the un- 
answerable question, " Is there evil in the city and 
the Lord hath not done it ? " 



NATIONAL SINS. 



121 



God's punishment for national sins is proportionate 
to the light, and to the advantages enjoyed, rather than 
to what men deem the atrocity of the offense. Such 
is the unvarying testimony of the sacred record in its 
precepts and its examples. Even the old Levitical 
law made a distinction between the enlightened trans- 
gressor, and him who, in its own language, committed 
a trespass through ignorance. Multitudes of the na- 
tions about Israel were gross idolaters, worshipers of 
Baal, and Chemosh, and Ashtoreth, and lived on, un- 
scathed by the lightnings of Jehovah, when his terrible 
voice was heard addressing the leader of enlightened 
Israel's hosts as they danced for the first time around 
their golden calf : "I have seen this people, and be- 
hold it is a stiff-necked people ; now therefore let me 
alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and 
that I may consume them." And despite the en- 
treaties and the tears of Moses, vengeance came, and 
there fell of the people that day about three thousand 
men. The sin of King David, already adverted to, 
was in man's estimate a trifling matter, a thing of 
very little consequence ; in the outward act it was 
simply a numbering of Israel and Judah, springing 
probably from a feeling of pride and independence, 
prompting to an unholy extension of his empire, upon 
which enterprise God's blessing could not be asked. 
A little matter ! The king of the Amorites or the 
king of the Hivites might have done the same thing, 
ignorantly and in unbelief, and possibly God had 
winked at it ; but David sinned against light and 
against knowledge, and vengeance followed. As in 
the case of individuals, so with nations, it is the 



122 



SERMONS. 



knowledge of the Lordls will that brings the punish- 
ment of many stripes to the transgressor, and in this 
respect there has always been, as there is now, a vast 
diversity among the dwellers upon our earth. While 
some are living and dying in midnight darkness, and 
others are enjoying the twilight, with us in this re- 
spect it is high noon. Truly God hath dealt bounti- 
fully with us, and he who is best acquainted with the 
world's history can most feelingly apply the language 
of the sacred writers to our own favored land. He 
hath not dealt so with any nation. " For ask now 
of the days that are past, which were before thee, 
since the day that God created man upon the earth, 
and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other 
whether there hath been any such thing as this great 
thing is, or hath been heard like it ; and what nation 
is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so 
righteous, or what nation is there so great, who hath 
God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all 
things that we call upon him for." Truly in this re- 
spect the lines had fallen unto us in pleasant places ; 
we had a goodly heritage. 

I speak not of individuals, but of the nation ; and 
while, as every one readily admits, God has done 
more for us than for any other people, has been load- 
ing us with benefits and blessings ever since we took 
our place among the nations of the earth, how inade- 
quate have been the returns we have made, how faint 
and feeble our acknowledgments of his goodness, 
how very seldom in our high places has even the ex- 
istence of a God been recognized. In this respect 
scarcely another civilized nation upon earth is so 



NATIONAL SINS. 



123 



guilty. Even in that palladium of our freedom of 
which we boast so highly, the Constitution of the 
United States, how carefully is omitted all recogni- 
tion of our indebtedness to the Most High. Says an 
eloquent writer, " That no notice whatever should be 
taken of that God who planteth a nation and pluck- 
eth it up at his pleasure, is an omission which no pre- 
text whatever can palliate. Had such a momentous 
business been transacted by Mohammedans they would 
have begun, ' In the name of God.' Even the savages 
whom we despise, setting a better example, would have 
paid some homage to the Great Spirit. But from the 
Constitution of the United States it is impossible to 
ascertain what God we worship, or whether we own 
a God at all." So, too, in perfect keeping with this 
godless instrument, when at the close of a heated con- 
troversy and a fierce political strife the ballots have 
been counted, and a new incumbent is to take his 
seat in the presidential chair, it is not republican to 
offer thanks to the Most High or to invoke his bless- 
ing. Of course the inauguration of a president is not 
like the coronation of kings and emperors in the old 
world, a religious ceremony; there is no incense 
offered, no pealing anthem, no consecrating oil. And 
with these things we can well dispense ; but it does 
seem as if there ought to be, on an occasion fraught 
with such momentous interests, one short invocation 
to the Most High for his blessing, one little burst of 
thanksgiving, something that at any rate should test- 
ify that we are not a nation of atheists. But I will 
not dwell on the evidences of our national ingrati- 
tude. The fact is beyond controversy. Let us rather 



124 



SERMONS. 



look a moment at our individual connection with this 
sin. Very common, I know, is the sentiment, What 
is all this to me % I am not ungrateful, and though 
the general government refuses to acknowledge God, 
does not the voice of grateful thanksgiving ascend 
from untold thousands of family altars and from un- 
numbered temples dedicated to the service of the 
Most High ? Even so. Be it known unto you, my 
hearer, however humble may be your lot in life, how- 
ever far removed from any direct agency in the affairs 
of the general government, you and I, and all of us, 
are alike bound up, for weal or woe, in our common 
country's destiny. What had those sheep done, said 
David, when the destroying angel was mowing them 
down by thousands because their monarch had of- 
fended God ? What had they done ? In the crime 
of the king, as we have seen, they had no participa- 
tion whatever ; and yet for the national sin, the sub- 
jects, the sheep, as David calls them, perished. So, 
too, in a later age, as we find it written for our admo- 
nition, when King Hezekiah forgot God, and, as the 
sacred writer expresses it, rendered not again accord- 
ing to the benefit done unto him, what then ? Then, 
say you, the Most High was offended with him. Yes, 
but Hezekiah was king ; and it is written, " therefore 
there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Je- 
rusalem." Ay, upon Judah and Jerusalem, because 
Hezekiah was ungrateful ! As truly as God is an 
unchangeable God, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever, our only hope that his wrath may be averted 
from us is in the assurance that he heareth prayer, 
that he regardeth penitential sorrow, that he hath 



NATIONAL SINS. 



125 



invited us to humble ourselves before him, to confess 
and bewail our national offenses. 

2. Nearly akin to our ingratitude, and even more 
flagrant and manifest, is our pride. I allude not to 
that love of country which prompts to rejoice in her 
prosperity and to magnify God's goodness toward 
us, but to that overweening arrogance, that reckless 
spirit of boasting and gasconade that runs through 
the entire nation, from the grave message of the Pres- 
ident down to the slang of the lowest menial in office, 
the corporal with his squad, or the boatswain upon 
the gun-deck. Our country, right or wrong ! There 
needs no argument to convince a believer in the Bible 
that this spirit is offensive in the sight of heaven. 
" Behold, saith the Lord God, this was the iniquity of 
Sodom, pride, fullness of bread ; and they were 
haughty and committed abomination before me, there- 
fore I took them away." He took them away by a 
terrible visitation, and left the sluggish waters of the 
Dead Sea as their everlasting monument to all ages, 
a fearful witness of his own eternal truth : " Pride 
goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before 
a fall." Merciful God ! We are a proud people, 
haughty, vain-glorious. Spare us, good Lord, let not 
thy wrath wax still hotter against us. "We acknowl- 
edge the truth of thine own severe charge as appli- 
cable to our own Columbia. She hath said in her 
heart, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see 
no sorrow ; but in thine infinite compassion let not 
thy judgments fall still more heavily upon us, nor 
say of our beloved country, " How much she hath 
glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment 



126 



SERMONS. 



and sorrow give her ; and her plagues shall come in 
one day, death, and mourning, and famine, for strong 
is the Lord God who judgeth her." 

3. Among our national sins I may advert, in the 
next place, to political animosities. Necessarily, from 
our form of government, and the wide extension of 
the elective franchise, there will be party prejudices 
and predilections. Men will widely and honestly 
differ in opinion, and they must be expected to give 
utterance to that difference of opinion with more or 
less warmth and energy. I readily admit too that in 
the jealousy of one party over the other, in the sleep- 
less vigilance of those for the time being in the mi- 
nority, we have perhaps one of the best guarantees 
for the safety of the republic ; but no unprejudiced 
observer can for a moment hesitate to admit that our 
political animosities are carried to a most unwarrant- 
able extent, are characterized by intense and unne- 
cessary bitterness, and are of most pernicious tendency. 
Ridiculous in the eyes of the civilized world has been 
the spectacle presented by this great nation from one 
extremity to the other for months preceding a general 
election. To say nothing of our annual state squab- 
blings, what floods of scurrility and blackguardism 
drench the land and enter every dwelling-place quad- 
rennially. How are the fairest characters blackened, 
the purest reputations tarnished ! What debates, en- 
vyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, 
swellings, tumults. And my people love to have it 
so. Ay, the professed people of God drink into the 
spirit greedily, and at such times and on such sub- 
jects seem to fancy they have a dispensation from 



NATIONAL SINS. 



127 



high heaven abrogating for the time being all the 
requirements of the decalogue, a dispensation more 
sweeping in extent and more God dishonoring than 
ever Roman pontiff dared to issue from the Vatican. 
May they bear false witness against their neighbor, if 
thereby they may hope to secure the success of a favor- 
ite candidate ? Is that commandment suspended till 
the election is Over ? Does the injunction, Speak not 
evil one of another, extend only to those of your own 
party ? Or, because one claims that the other faction 
commenced the work of defamation, may he retaliate, 
and reckon of no account the commandment which 
forbids to return railing for railing ? Nay, verily, 
God has given us no dispensation. These are sins 
always ; they are registered in heaven ; and if God 
be true, they must be abominable in his sight. 

Finally, on this head, I should do injustice to my 
subject and to you did I fail to advert to one of the 
most gigantic evils which was ever permitted to curse 
our world, one of the most outrageous sins of which 
by any possibility a nation can be guilty. It is not 
merely that abomination against which God says I 
will be a swift witness, the oppression of the hireling 
in his wages, the widow and the fatherless ; but that 
oppression which divests man, made in God's image, 
of all rights which nullifies the relationship of hus- 
band and wife, and parent and child, makes man a 
brute, a chattel, a thing, riots in luxury upon the 
fruit of his toil, and when it suits his pleasure sells 
him for whom Christ died, body and soul, for money, 
and in wretched mockery pleads the sanction of laws 
made by himself in conjunction with his fellow-op- 



128 



SERMONS. 



pressors. Is slavery a national sin ? I need not send 
you for an answer to that question to the Mississippi 
cane-brakes, to the rice-swamps of the Carolinas, or 
the cotton-fields of Georgia, nor tell you that those 
men who wield the lash or those who pocket the 
gains thence arising are our countrymen, and that we 
are linked to them, one nation at least as yet, and one 
destiny. Tou know all this, and you know there are 
entering into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth inces- 
santly, day and night, not only the cry of the labor- 
ers whose hire has been kept back by fraud, but the 
groanings of the oppressed, the tears, the agony of 
desolate spirits made bitter by cruel bondage. So 
deep-rooted is this sin, so wide-spreading, that it finds 
apologists even at the North, ay, even among pro- 
fessing Christians and ministers of the blessed Jesus. 
They tell us the law sanctions the abomination ; that 
there are good men among those who live upon the 
unpaid toil of their victims ; that, at any rate, it is 
best to say nothing about it. Truly it is time for all 
who believe in the justice of the Almighty, who re- 
cognize his voice as saying, " If thou afflict them in 
any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear 
their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill 
you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows 
and your children fatherless," it is time, I say, to hum- 
ble ourselves before God. 

Only by unfeigned penitence and humiliation may 
we hope to avert heaven's judgments from our guilty 
land. Am I asked, Who are to repent ? who are to 
humble themselves ? I answer — if you have not al- 
ready inferred an answer to the question — Every man, 



NATIONAL SINS. 



129 



woman, and child who believes in the existence of an 
infinitely holy God ; of a God who is of purer eyes than 
to behold evil, and who cannot look on iniquity. It 
is not enough that we lament our own leanness, that 
we mourn over our personal transgressions. "We are 
to remember that God punishes nations for unrepented 
national sins, that these punishments are inflicted in 
this world, and that when our country suffers we suf- 
fer with it. " Shall I not visit for these things, saith 
the Lord ? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a 
nation as this and " I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generations of 
them that hate me." There is little prospect that at 
length our men in authority, our rulers, will hear the 
rod and him who hath appointed it ; " for I heark- 
ened and heard, but they spake not aright ; no man 
repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have 
I done ? Every one turned to his course, as the horse 
rusheth into the battle. Our country's only hope is 
in Christ's little flock, in those whom he has styled 
the salt of the earth, the salt that hath preserved us 
hitherto from putrefaction and destruction. And, 
blessed be his holy name ! he still heareth prayer, he 
regardeth the voice of supplication ; his precious prom- 
ises are still beaming upon the sacred page. As if 
written specially for us, yea, as if coming directly 
from his own lips, I read from the sacred page : " At 
what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and 
concerning a kingdom to pluck up, and to pull down, 
and to destroy it ; if that nation against whom I have 
pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the 

9 



130 



SERMONS. 



evil that I thought to do unto them." And yet again/ 
in still further confirmation of our entire and sufficient 
dependence upon the humiliation and intercession of 
his own children, our infinitely gracious God declares 
with reference to his threatened judgments, war, fam- 
ine, and pestilence, " If my people which are called 
by my name shall humble themselves, and pray and 
seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then 
will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sins and 
heal their land." So may our gracious and covenant- 
keeping God pour upon the Christian people of this 
nation the spirit of true repentance and earnest call- 
ing upon him, that the curses incurred by our national 
sins may be turned away from us. 



THE AMEEICAN CITIZEN. 



131 



VI. 

THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 

A THANKSGIVING SERMON FOR 1840. 

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; yea, i have 

A GOODLY HERITAGE. — Psalm xvi, 6. 

The appropriate work of the Christian minister is 
evidently, first and chiefly, to lead men to Christ ; to 
unfold the mysteries of redemption, and to proclaim 
the glad tidings of salvation to a world lying in wick- 
edness. But, in assuming the ministerial office, and 
in consenting to be set apart for that duty, he relin- 
quishes none of his rights, and forfeits none of his 
privileges, as a man or as a citizen. He is still & fel- 
low-citizen with those among whom he ministers, and 
has, with them, duties to perform, rights to guard, 
and a country to cherish and to love. There is 
nothing, therefore, that forbids him, on suitable 
occasions, to diverge a little from the usual track, 
and to discourse to his fellow-citizens on those sub- 
jects which may tend to set before them their civil 
duties, and to fan the flame of patriotism within 
their hearts. 

It is not necessary, on the present occasion, to dwell 
on the original design of the sentiment which I have 
chosen for the text. It evidently has reference to the 
division of the promised land among the children of 
Israel. Their inheritance was given unto the different 



132 



SEKMOJSTS. 



tribes and families by lot ; and the language before 
us may be considered as an indication of the Psalm- 
ist's satisfaction with, and an expression of thankful- 
ness for, that part of the inheritance which had fallen 
to his share. 

Whether, my fellow-citizens, we consider the extent 
of our territory, the fertility of our soil, or the sys- 
tem of government under which we live, the language 
of the text is exceedingly appropriate to us ; and each 
may say with kindling emotions of gratitude, " The 
lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; yea, I 
have a goodly heritage." 

Love of country is so universal in the human heart, 
that it may be considered almost instinctive. Be it 
the ice-bound coast of Greenland, or the burning 
sand of the desert; be it amid civilization and re- 
finement, where liberty dwells, or under the deadly 
atmosphere of tyranny and oppression, there breathes 
not 

"A man with soul so dead, 
That never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land." 

Surely nothing is needed to excite in you, citizens 
of a republic that has been styled " The world's last 
hope," the feeling of patriotism. It glows in your 
bosoms instinctively. Kindled with the first dawn of 
consciousness, and burning with increasing brilliancy 
as years have rolled away, it can never be extin- 
guished, save with life itself. And the question which 
we purpose to discuss is one which, however treated, 
or by whom presented, cannot fail to awaken interest 
and to excite attention. That question is, 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN*. 



133 



What are the duties devolving upon an 
American citizen ? 

First and generally, to do all that lies in his power 
to perpetuate the civil blessings which are his birth- 
right, and to hand down, unimpaired, to the latest 
posterity, those free institutions under which it is his 
privilege to live. 

From this general proposition no one will dissent ; 
nor yet, I trust, from the specific duties which it im- 
poses upon us individually. To these, then, let me 
ask your attention. It is the duty of an American 
citizen, 

1. To reverence the laws of the land. 

" The various forms of government under which 
society has existed may be reduced to two : govern- 
ments of will, aiid governments of law. A govern- 
ment of will supposes that there are created two classes 
of society, the rulers and the ruled. It supposes all 
power to be vested in the hands of the rulers ; and 
that law is nothing but the expression of their will, 
to which the people are bound to yield passive and 
implicit obedience. The government of law rests on 
principles precisely the reverse of this. It supposes 
that all men are equal before the law. Supposing all 
power to emanate from the people, it considers the 
authority of the rulers purely a delegated authority, 
to be exercised according to a written code, which 
code is nothing more than an expression of the people's 
will. It teaches that the ruler is only the organ of 
public opinion, and that if he ceases to be so he shall 
be a ruler no longer." * 

* Wayland. 



134 



SERMONS. 



It is under this latter system, a government of law, 
that we live. Owing no allegiance to any man on 
account of his birth, submitting to the dictation of 
no favored class in the community, every citizen has 
a voice in the enacting, modifying, and repealing the 
laws of the land, and is himself, by virtue of his birth 
or his naturalization, a legislator. It is this which 
distinguishes the American citizen from the subjects 
of every despotism and of every monarchy, whether 
it be absolute or limited, on the face of the globe ; 
for even in England, the mother of us all, the people 
can enact and can abolish no law without the consent 
of a favored few, who, by the mere accident of birth, 
are clothed with authority, and demand on that ac- 
count, from their less fortunate fellow-men, homage 
and obedience. 

But the American citizen is something more than 
a legislator : he has not merely a voice in making the 
laws, but it is his duty to see that the laws, when 
made, are executed. True, he delegates this duty to 
officers selected for that purpose ; but their power 
for this purpose is to a very large extent subject to 
the force of public opinion ; and hence it follows, 
that in order that the laws may be executed, it is the 
paramount duty of every American citizen to yield 
to them implicit obedience. 

But suppose the law is an impolitic one ; nay, sup- 
pose even that in your opinion it is oppressive. 
What then ? There is a way to have it abrogated or 
altered ; but in the mean time, while it continues upon 
the statute book, unless it involves an immorality, 
it is just as binding, just as much your duty to obey 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



135 



its injunctions as though it were totally free from 
objections, and in fact the very embodiment of your 
personal will. It is here that the greatest danger is 
to be apprehended ; here the rock that threatens 
wreck and destruction to the goodly fabric reared by 
the toil and the blood of our fathers. A minority 
powerful in numbers, perhaps almost equal to the ma- 
jority, may set itself in array against the laws of the 
land, and instead of waiting until by fair and honest 
argument they may be able to turn the scale, and 
have those laws made what they think they ought to 
be, rush into open resistance, erect the standard of 
revolt, and proclaim nullification, which is treason. 
Now, against the first buddings of a spirit like this, 
it is the duty of every American citizen who wishes 
to perpetuate the free institutions of his country to 
raise his voice, and to exert all the influence that God 
has put within his power. 

There is another evil, symptoms of which have at 
times shown themselves, nearly allied to the one just 
alluded to, and scarcely less to be deprecated in its 
mischievous results. It is that which is known in our 
country, for I believe the name and the thing are 
purely American, as lynch law. Justice is some- 
times tardy in her visitations ; led on by faction and 
blinded by an over-heated zeal, the populace, under 
pretense of enforcing law, and administering justice, 
and maintaining equity, take vengeance into their 
own hands ; they apply the midnight torch, destroy 
the property of their fellows, and bathe their hands 
in blood. To those who are familiar with the events 
of the last few years, as made known through the 



136 



SERMONS. 



columns of the periodical press, this will not seem a 
mere picture of the imagination. "Who has done 
these things ? Whose hands have lighted green fag- 
ots around a living man, and strung up a dozen or 
twenty citizens on the same gallows, and fired and 
razed houses, and sent a company of trembling 
women flying for their lives at midnight ? The an- 
swer to these questions adds inexpressibly to the hor- 
ror of the acts themselves. They were not done by 
the poor, the ignorant, and the degraded ; on the 
contrary, in every instance the ringleaders were gen- 
tlemen of property and standing, as they are called ; 
men who knew better, and from whom their country 
and the world had a right to expect better things. 

"What shall we say to these things? Shall they 
pass without rebuke ? Shall the world settle down 
in the opinion that these tremendous evils are the 
necessary result of free institutions and a free govern- 
ment ? Is there indeed no difference discernible be- 
tween liberty and lawlessness ? Because we declare 
there is no power superior to that of the people, shall 
we, the people, violate our own laws, and present to 
the world the disgraceful spectacle of a nation raised 
up by the agency of heaven, unconquerable, and bid- 
ding calm defiance to the foreign invader, falling by 
the hands of her own sons ? A national suicide ! 
Where is patriotism ? Where the spirit of our fa- 
thers ? Do we inherit their names only ? Or is 
there yet energy enough, when we view this matter 
in its true light, to drag every violator of the law, 
whether he be high or low, to the judgment seat, 
and confidence enough to leave him there until the 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



137 



verdict is given, and moral power yet left to insist 
that the righteous penalty be exacted ? 

Let us see to it that we ourselves obey the laws, 
and teach our children to obey them ; that no neigh- 
bor trangresses without rebuke ; that the indignant 
voice of the community be lifted up in thunder tones 
against every violation of the expressed will of the 
sovereign majesty of the people ; and despite the 
predictions of the sages of the old world, the hopes 
of hereditary tyrants, and the fears of those who 
tremble for our stability, all will be well. The re- 
public shall glide on, in the storm and in the sun- 
shine, gallantly to the accomplishment of her destiny, 
the happiness of her sons, and the political regenera- 
tion of the world around her. 

Nearly allied to this is the duty to which I ask 
attention in the second place : 

2. Of treating with becoming respect those who 
by the laws of the land are vested with office and 
authority. 

Practically unacquainted as we are, from the na- 
ture of our government, with that feeling known by 
the name of loyalty among the subjects of European 
monarchs, there is a great tendency among us to the 
opposite extreme, to esteem lightly those who by the 
voice of their fellow-citizens have risen to eminence, 
and thus, indirectly indeed, but nevertheless infalli- 
bly, to bring the office, with the incumbent, into con- 
tempt. 

It is written, " Thou shalt not speak evil of the 
ruler of thy people a maxim which, sanctioned 
though it be by Infinite Wisdom, and appealing for its 



138 



SEKMONS. 



propriety to the common sense of every reflecting 
man, is perhaps more frequently and more flagrantly 
violated by the American people than by any nation 
under heaven. The evil is indeed so common among 
us that its enormity is in a great degree overlooked. 
Good men, well-meaning citizens, lend it their sanc- 
tion ; and the press, that mightiest of all human en- 
gines for good or for evil, teems too frequently with 
scurrility and slander on those in authority. 

Let a well-informed foreigner visit our land on the 
eve of a contested election ; let him attend the politi- 
cal meetings of both parties ; give him the daily 
papers, and bid him form from them an unbiased 
judgment relative to our men in office and our can- 
didates for office, and what will be the result ? to 
what conclusion will he come ? Most evidently either 
that our great men are all great knaves, or else that 
at such times, with the periodical press at our head, 
we give ourselves up to delusion and falsehood. 

I am aware that the peculiarity of our free institu- 
tions, the liberty of the press, the unrestrained elect- 
ive franchise which we enjoy, may be urged as reasons 
for this trait in our national character. It is right 
that the press should be untrameled ; and that in 
this country, at least, there should not be a murmur 
against the temperate discussion of any subject what- 
ever. It is perfectly right that the public acts of 
public men should be scanned with sleepless vigilance ; 
their errors pointed out, and their delinquencies pub- 
lished as upon the house-tops. But it is not right — it 
is unjust, it is unwise, it is impolitic — to tear open the 
secrets of a man's domestic retirement, to hold up his 



THE AMEKICAN CITIZEN. 



139 



person to ridicule, or in any way, by sneers, or sophis- 
try, or song, to attempt that which cannot be done by 
manly argument and legitimate reason. I say such 
conduct is impolitic. Sooner or later it will recoil 
with aggravated force upon the head of that man or 
that party who adopts it. I say it is unwise, because 
it is not only making us appear ridiculous in the" eyes 
of the civilized world, which are fixed with intensity 
upon us and upon our doings, but its tendency is to 
drive the good and the virtuous from the political 
arena, and to leave our official stations, which ought 
to be the aim and the reward of integrity and honor, 
to be scrambled for by the brawler and the dema- 
gogue. 

The remedy for this evil is in our own hands. Let 
it meet the frown of every citizen who wishes well 
to his country, and it will speedily disappear not 
only from the political harangue, but from the col- 
umns of the party journals of the day. The press 
does not lead public opinion to the extent that many 
imagine. On the contrary, it is in public opinion 
that it lives, and moves, and has its being. When- 
ever those who read demand truth and candor in 
their journals, and reject falsehood and vituperation, 
they will be served according to their desire. 

3. It is the duty of an American citizen to exer- 
cise the elective franchise according to his best judg- 
ment. 

This includes, as you perceive, two propositions : 
the first, that it is his duty to vote ; and the second, 
that it is his duty to vote honestly. There are men, 
it is true, who tell us they take no interest in poli- 



SERMONS. 



tics ; they care not who is in office ; they must look 
after their own affairs : let the country take care of 
itself. Now such men may make very good serfs for 
a Russian despot, but they deserve not the name of 
American freemen. Is it too much for them to de- 
vote the little time that is required in going to the 
ballot-box, and there depositing their opinion of the 
relative claims of the contending candidates ? By 
what right do they claim exemption from a duty 
which the genius of liberty has devolved upon her 
sons in this her goodly heritage ? Have not all just as 
good a right as they to neglect it ? And if all should 
follow their example, what then % 

Nearly allied to this, and on which it greatly de- 
pends, it is the duty of an American citizen, 

4. To make himself acquainted with the passing 
events of his own and of other countries. Without 
a knowledge of what his servants are doing in the 
halls of legislation, in the gubernatorial seat, and in 
the presidential chair, how is he to know whether 
they are trustworthy ? whether they deserve his con- 
fidence and are entitled to his vote ? I call these 
high functionaries the servants of the American citi- 
zen. They are so ; they are created by his voice, they 
are paid from his earnings, and like servants of every 
other kind, they need watching. 

In those countries where it is deemed expedient 
that information should be taxed, there may be a 
very good reason why the people are kept ignorant 
of passing events and of the doings of their rulers ; 
but here, where the press is constantly pouring forth 
light, where it is almost as cheap, and as readily at- 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



141 



tainable as the beams of the great luminary of day, 
it is disgraceful, because absolutely inexcusable and 
unnecessary. 

But this part of our subject presents a higher and 
still brighter aspect. By means of the periodical 
press, not only is a knowledge of the doings of our 
own country diffused, but the events and occurrences 
of foreign lands are brought into the dwellings even 
of the poor, and discussed by their firesides. To 
adopt the words of an eloquent writer, " Antiquated 
distinctions are passing away, and local animosities 
are subsiding. The common people of different 
countries are knowing each other better and es- 
teeming each other more, and attaching them- 
selves to each other by various manifestations of 
reciprocal good will. Local questions are becoming 
of less, and general questions of greater importance. 
Men are beginning to understand the rights and to 
feel for the wrongs of each other. Mountains inter- 
posed do not so much make enemies of nations. Let 
the trumpet of alarm be sounded, and its notes are 
now heard by every nation, whether of Europe or 
America. Let a voice, borne on the feeblest breeze, 
tell that the rights of man are in danger, and it floats 
over valley and mountain, across continent and ocean, 
until it has vibrated on the ear of the remotest 
dweller in Christendom. Let the arm of oppression 
be raised to crush the feeblest nation on earth, and 
there will be heard everywhere, if not the shout of 
defiance, at least the deep-toned murmur of implaca- 
ble displeasure. It is the cry of aggrieved, insulted, 
much-abused man. It is human nature, waking in 



142 



SERMONS. 



her might from the slumber of ages, shaking herself 
from the dust of antiquated institutions, girding her- 
self for the combat, and going forth conquering and to 
conquer. Woe unto the man, woe unto the dynasty, 
woe unto the party and woe unto the policy on whom 
shall fall the scath of her blighting indignation." 

5. This leads me to remark, further, as a duty 
binding upon every lover of his country, not only to 
be well informed himself, but to aid, as far as in him 
lies, in the general diffusion of knowledge through- 
out the community. Our population is made up of a 
mixed and motley group. The arms of the republic 
are thrown wide open to receive all who choose to 
make her their asylum. In the extreme of her kind- 
ness she has chosen to give those of foreign birth 
equal and in some respects greater privileges than 
are enjoyed by her native sons. They must wait 
twenty-one years to obtain that right which a for- 
eigner may have almost immediately after his arrival. 
It is not for me to question our policy in this respect. 
I only allude to it as bearing upon the necessity of 
diffusing knowledge among the holders of the nation's 
destiny ; I mean those who have the right, in what- 
ever way attained, of speaking through the ballot- 
box. I care not whence they come, nor who they 
are ; let them be intelligent, enlightened, acquainted 
with and obedient to the laws of the land, and the 
republic is in no danger. 

See to it then, fellow-citizens, that light be scat- 
tered in every direction ; that the children, at least, 
if you cannot reach the parents, be educated ; that 
they may know what it is to be citizens of republican 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



143 



America ; that they may fully understand their duties 
and their rights. When the industrious and laborious 
classes of the community fully understand these 
things, then the mask of the demagogue will be torn 
off ; anarchy and brawls and riots will be among 
the things that have been, but are no longer. 

6. It will not be supposed, when I remark in the 
next place, as the duty pre-eminently of an American 
citizen to acknowledge the being and superintending 
providence of God, that I depart from the object pro- 
posed to myself in this discourse, to address my fel- 
low-citizens as a citizen. Laying aside the functions 
of the sacred office, I should be recreant to my duty 
as one claiming with you a share in this goodly herit- 
age, did I not remind you that there is a God who 
" doeth according to his will in the army of heaven 
and among the inhabitants of earth a God to 
whom we, of all people, are most largely indebted. 
Trace the history of the republic from the first blood 
that flowed at Lexington, through the succeeding 
events of the Revolutionary struggle. Look at the 
diversified interests and mutual jealousies of the first 
Congress ; see in that body the elder Adams rising 
above all sectional feeling, and proposing for com- 
mander-in-chief the delegate from Virginia ; mark 
the result of the election for that office when the 
ballots are counted and it is announced that George 
Washington is unanimously elected ; read the mem- 
orable words found in his letter to his wife announc- 
ing this result : " I shall rely confidently on that Prov- 
idence which has heretofore preserved and been 
bountiful to rne." Follow the track of the Conti- 



1U 



SERMONS. 



nental army, at times half naked, with feet blistered 
and bleeding ; gaze on the father of his country, in 
the darkest hour of her peril, unfaltering before the 
foe, but bending his knee to the God of battles ; 
hearken to his proclamation calling upon his soldiers 
to unite in thanksgiving to God at some little suc- 
cess in the great conflict : but the whole history is 
familiar to you, and being familiar, he must be will- 
fully blind who does not see the hand of an All- wise 
and Almighty being in the results: of the war, and in 
the establishment of an independent nation. And 
shall an American citizen forget God % Shall he, of 
all men, neglect to do him reverence, or publicly, for 
his own sake, for the sake of his children and of his 
country, refuse to offer unto him praise and thanks- 
giving ? 

To the same source must be attributed our national 
prosperity and rapid advancement among the nations 
of the earth ; and it is cheering to notice the promi- 
nent allusion to this fact in the last message of the 
President of the United States, as well as in the 
proclamation of our governor. " If it had not been 
the Lord who was on our side, now may 55 Columbia 
" say ; if it had not been the Lord who was on our 
side when men rose up against us, then they had 
swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled 
against us." 

What have we done to merit these blessings ? 
What has averted his wrath from our national sins ? 
What has stayed the thunderbolts of his indignation, 
and saved us from being dashed to pieces as a potter's 
vessel, when the accusing angel has flown up to heav- 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



145 



en with the proof of our violated' treaties with the 
red men of the forest ? when have entered into the 
ears of the Lord of Hosts the clank of the fetter, 
binding human victims ; the groans of the crushed 
spirit sold into hopeless bondage, even before the 
walls of the Capitol, and under the waving folds of 
the star-spangled banner ! "Worse than this, when 
even good men have gone so far as to say on this sub- 
ject M hush ! " to attempt to muzzle the press and to 
gag the pulpit. When Jehovah has seen and heard 
all this, and yet has forborne to visit us in wrath ; 
has preserved us from foreign invasion and from the 
horrors of civil war, truly may we say with the sacred 
writer, " He hath not dealt so with any nation." 
" He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor re- 
warded us according to our transgressions." 

" I tremble," said the patriotic Jefferson — for there 
was a time when Southern men spoke out the senti- 
ments of their hearts on this subject — " I tremble for 
my country when I remember that God is just." 
And truly, fellow-citizens, it becometh us to remem- 
ber that God is just ; to humble ourselves in view of 
the nation's guilt in this matter ; to call for the inter- 
position of his heavenly wisdom, that by some means 
the plague spot may be exterminated from among us, 
and that the glorious declaration we have published 
to the world, that all men are created equal, may be 
something more than a flourish of rhetoric ; that it 
may be a fact and a reality throughout our borders. 

7. To elevate the moral, as well as the intellectual 
character of our people, should therefore be a cher- 
ished obiect of the American citizen. The heart as 
J 10 



146 



SERMONS. 



well as the head needs cultivation. The holders of 
the destiny of a nation like this should be virtuous 
as well as enlightened. For this object, God has 
given us a volume of tried efficacy, a remedy, and 
the only remedy the world has ever known, for the 
innate depravity of the human heart. Let men differ 
in opinion as they may as to the dogmas taught from 
the Bible, there can be no honest doubt of the fact 
that it does teach a pure morality ; that it forbids 
that which is wrong, and enjoins that which is right ; 
that where its precepts are inculcated and listened to, 
men become better citizens, better acquainted with 
the civil and social relations which they sustain to 
one another, and learn to respect that bond by which 
the whole human family is united in one brotherhood. 
That the Bible is designed to effect these objects is 
indisputable ; that in many instances it has accom- 
plished them is clear as the evidence of sight ; and 
that like causes produce like effects, is an axiom that 
holds throughout the universe of God. 

It is one melancholy evidence of the dire malignity 
of the human heart, that in every age the Bible has 
had enemies to contend with : at one time openly, 
and in the face of day ; at another secretly, and in 
the dark. It is the same spirit that, when the Truth 
embodied appeared among men, cried out for the 
scourge and the cross, that they might escape his 
withering glance. 

To you, my fellow-citizens, who have been ac- 
quainted with my ministry, I need not say that much 
as I love my creed, I love the Bible more. I seek no 
controversy with those who revere its pages, let them 



THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 



147 



bear what name they may. My object is not so much 
to make proselytes to a sect, as to diffuse that light 
which God has given to a world lying in darkness. 
But when efforts are made to put out that light, and 
to bring back the world to the midnight of the middle 
ages, then it becomes every patriotic heart to nerve 
itself for the combat, and to rally on the side of God 
and his truth. 

Having thus briefly touched upon some of the more 
prominent duties pertaining to those who bear the 
honorable name of American citizens, permit me to 
say, in conclusion, they belong to you all, without 
distinction. 

To whatever sect or denomination ; to whatever 
branch of the Christian family we are attached ; in 
whatever circle we move ; whatever be our profession, 
or calling, or occupation, to us individually, inasmuch 
as the whole is made up of parts, to us is committed 
a trust, dearer and of more magnitude, than has ever 
been given to any people in any period of time. It 
is to preserve and cherish those civil and religious 
institutions under which we live ; to hand them down 
unimpaired to posterity, so that in future ages, on the 
annual return of the day set apart for thanksgiving, 
from the hearts of unnumbered millions who shall 
dwell upon this soil while we are mouldering beneath 
it, there shall be heard, from one extremity of the 
land to the other, the pealing anthem, " The lines 
have fallen to us in pleasant places ; yea, we have a 
goodly heritage." 



148 



SEEMONS. 



VII. 

COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. 

And covetousness, which is idolatry.— Col. iii, 5. 

Lsr all ages idolatry has been the special tempta- 
tion of the children of God, their easily besetting 
sin. At the base of Mount Sinai, while yet Moses 
tarried in the thick darkness in converse with Jeho- 
vah, the Israelites made for themselves a golden 
calf. They fell down and worshiped it. They said, 
" This is the God that brought us out of the land of 
bondage." 

In their history afterward we see them adoring 
the hosts of heaven, the created sun, and moon, and 
stars. They worshiped successively men, beasts, 
devils. They rushed greedily from one idolatrous 
object to another. When their own ingenuity was 
exhausted they seized upon the inventions of the 
surrounding nations, and in turn paid divine hom- 
age to Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Zidon, 
and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children 
of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. 

Such is the melancholy record of their history. 
We marvel at it. It seems almost incredible that 
with so many evidences of the presence and the 
power of Jehovah, with so many fearful warnings 
and maledictions, nay, with so many terrible proofs 



CO VETO USNESS IS IDOLATRY. 



149 



of his hot displeasure against this giant sin, they 
should have continued in its practice, apparently 
glorying in their shame, and bidding defiance to the 
true God, whom they nevertheless strangely ac- 
knowledge to be the Almighty. They feared the 
Lord, it is said of them on one occasion, but they 
served their own gods. There had been some excuse 
for them, indeed, if they had not known the true 
God. They not only knew him, but they saw his 
wonderful works, and feared him even while giving 
his glory to dumb and dead idols and to imaginary 
deities. 

Nor was this true of one generation only. It is 
written in the chapter from which I have just quoted, 
" So these nations feared the Lord, and served their 
graven images, both their children and their chil- 
dren's children ; as did their fathers, so do they unto 
this day." 

Unto this day ! That was written long since. It 
was true of that people in that age. Is it true of any 
people in the present age ? Alas, among the profess- 
ing people of God in this our day idolatry is quite 
as prevalent, as reckless, as God-defying and as God- 
dishonoring as it was in the darkest period of Israel's 
history. For what is idolatry ? It is not an outward 
act merely ; the chanting of psalms, the burning of 
incense, the bow T ing of the knee. Like the worship 
which the Father seeketh, idolatry is spiritual ; it has 
its seat in the heart. It seeks no crowded assembly 
for its exhibition ; it needs no consecrated temple ; 
it requires no officiating priest ; nay, not even a pic- 
ture nor an image. For it is written, " Covetousness 



150 



SERMONS. 



is idolatry." Fearful words are those, admitting of no 
equivocation, no compromise. It is not tliat covet- 
ousness resembles idolatry, or that the one may 
be considered the counterpart of the other, or that 
the two have many points in common. In plain, un- 
mistakable phrase, the teaching is that the two are 
identical, that every covetous man is an idolater. He 
does not, indeed, bow the knee to a graven image, 
but he does homage to an abstract idol called money. 
Certainly he has too much good sense to be seen wor- 
shiping a calf made of gold ; but in his heart he rev- 
erences the raw material. And God knows it, for he 
looketh upon the heart. 

Hence we see why Jesus Christ so frequently and 
so pointedly warns his people against this easily be- 
setting sin. In his first public discourse he states 
with great clearness the everlasting antagonism be- 
tween the worship of God and the worship of a crea- 
ture. The two cannot coexist. No man can serve 
two masters. Christ declares it absolutely impossible 
to serve God and mammon. Yet who believes Christ ? 
Did the apostles believe him ? Not all. One of 
them determined to try the experiment. He pilfered 
a little from his fellow-disciples ; but a little ; not 
intending to serve mammon, or entirely to abandon 
the service of Christ. Of course not. He was 
known and recognized as one of the Saviour's disci- 
ples, one of the chiefs, holding an official station — 
the treasurer. For a time it did seem as if he were 
falsifying the words of the Master. He appeared to 
be serving Jesus while he was serving mammon. But 
this did not last long. Soon mammon gained the 



OOVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. 



151 



victory. So far as Jesus was concerned the fact was 
known long before. But now mammon claims entire 
visible allegiance and exclusive homage. Judas yields 
it. The Son of God is sold for money. Nobody 
pretends that the disciple is now striving to serve two 
masters. Christ is renounced. Mammon is acknowl- 
edged, and mammon pays the. unhappy wretch his 
wages. 

In the same sermon which contains the theoretical 
truism to which I have referred, the great Teacher 
gives us practical instruction which it is the almost 
uniform custom of his professing followers to repudi- 
ate. He says, " Lay not up treasures upon earth." 
Is that a command, or is it advice merely ? The 
latter, beyond all question, if we seek the answer in 
the conduct of those to whom he speaks, those who 
call him Master. But then advice from his lips de- 
serves attention and respect, more especially when he 
condescends to give a reason for it. And what is the 
reason? "Why should we not lay up for ourselves 
treasures upon earth ? Because, says Christ, and he 
knows, " where your treasure is there will your heart 
be also." That upon which the heart is fixed is the 
object of affection, love, esteem, reverence. It be- 
comes an idol, and is worshiped. As you would 
avoid falling into that most abominable sin, shun that 
which leads directly to it. Do not lay up treasures 
upon earth unless you desire to renounce the service 
of the true God and to become an idolater. Such is 
the Saviour's advice, and such the Saviour's argu- 
ment. If the argument is sound, and of that there 
can be no question, the advice is most certainly good, 



152 



SERMONS. 



and ought to have the force of law with all who call 
him Lord. 

But he is still more specific upon this subject. It 
is not enough that all through his teaching his warn- 
ing voice is lifted up, urging all to take heed and 
beware of covetousness, but he gives us example as 
well as precept. He tells us of a rich man whose 
only object was to enjoy and increase his worldly 
goods, (the Church is full of just such men at the 
present day,) and upon whose ears like a clap of thun- 
der fell the voice of God saying unto him, u Thou 
fool ! this night thy soul shall be required of thee." 
His soul % Ah, that was terrible, but his was not an 
isolated case. The Saviour, apparently fearing that 
some of his hearers or readers might be induced so 
to think, immediately added, " So," that is, like that 
man, " is he," whenever and wherever found, " that 
layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward 
God." 

Thus, all through the Saviour's stay on earth, his 
warnings and entreaties and threatenings and de- 
nunciations were continually directed against this 
one sin, this idolatry of the heart. 

And how was it after his ascension, when the 
Church was left more exclusively to the government 
and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Were warnings 
and judgments still necessary? Did idolatry find 
hearts in which it might lurk and distill its deadly 
poison ? Even so, and right across the sacred portals 
of the Church were thrown the dead bodies of a 
man and his wife while yet the vast majority of the 
disciples were warm in their first love. And what 



COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. 



153 



had this couple done to warrant this dreadful doom ? 
Truly, as men usually estimate these things, they had 
not done much nor acted very wickedly. They had 
kept for their own use, laying it by against a time 
of need, a portion of their own money, of which they 
were under no obligation to throw any part into the 
common stock. But then they attempted to deceive 
the apostles and their fellow-Christians. They tried 
to serve God and mammon. They wanted the repu- 
tation and the credit of doing as others did ; but 
then they wanted also to save a little money. Possi- 
bly they had children for whose worldly interests 
they had a natural parental anxiety. And then, the 
falsehood which they both agreed to tell was not so 
glaring as it might have been. Tried by the stand- 
ard of many disciples of the present day, it would 
pass for a mere exaggeration. When Peter named 
the sum for which they professed to have sold the 
estate and asked, Did you sell it for that sum ? they 
answer yes. And that was true, but not the whole 
truth. They sold it for so much and — something 
more. For this they were both hurried before the 
bar of God. 

Great fear, it is said, came upon all the Church 
when they heard of these things. There were, doubt- 
less, honest searchings of heart, and solemn self-ex- 
aminations, and earnest prayers for the cleansing 
power of the Holy Spirit. For a season there were 
no more idolaters seeking admission into the Church ; 
and of those who were in, none ventured to lie unto 
the Holy Ghost. 

But soon the dreadful impression died away. The 



154 



SERMONS. 



fate of Ananias and Sappliira was forgotten. No, 
not exactly forgotten. There was a tradition about it 
wherever disciples were to be found, until Luke placed 
the whole account on imperishable record, and thus 
it has come down to us. It is not forgotten. It is 
there in the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. 
It is read sometimes : wondered at, pondered over, 
and once in a great while it forms the subject of a 
discourse from the pulpit. It is like a tale of other 
days, a true tale, of course, because it is found in the 
Bible ; but we read it, or hear about it, as if it were 
to be merely wondered at, and had no practical appli- 
cation to the present times. 

There were instances of similar idolatry in the 
Apostolic Church. The name of Demas has come 
down to us, but all we know about him is, that being 
a disciple he forsook the apostle, " having loved this 
present world." It became necessary for Paul in 
writing to the Ephesians to remind them that "no 
covetous man who is an idolater hath any inherit- 
ance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." A 
startling declaration ! Many a covetous man had 
even then found his way into the Church, and sup- 
posed, perhaps died in the supposition, that he had at 
least a little inheritance in that kingdom. All such 
were numbered among those who, " while they cov- 
eted after money, erred from the faith and pierced 
themselves through with many sorrows that sorrow 
being, unquestionably, the keenest and most severe, 
which arose from the fact that after all their profes- 
sion and nominal connection with the Church they 
had no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of 



COVETOUSNESS IS IDOL ATE Y. 155 



God. It was terrible for such to be told to " weep 
and howl for the miseries that should come upon 
them." Most terrible, certainly, if they heard not 
that bitter denunciation until they had crossed the 
narrow stream which separates this world from that 
in which no place is found for repentance though it 
be sought carefully and with tears. 

And so it has been from that day to the present. 
Wealth accumulates in the hands of Christians. In 
a vast majority of cases the love of money increases 
just as fast as money itself increases. Then the af- 
fections become fixed on worldly possessions, not 
exclusively as the enemy persuades the deluded disci- 
ples. They retain their membership in the Church, 
pay pew rent, give a trifle to almost every benevolent 
object, and really do appear to have accomplished 
the impossibility of serving at the same time both 
God and mammon. But it is not so. He who look- 
eth not merely at the outward appearance sees the 
idolater, even in God's own temple, bowing the knee 
to Jehovah while worshiping the idol enshrined in his 
own bosom. 

But men and women are not now smitten down 
with covetousness in their hearts, evincing itself by a 
lie upon their lips. Dead bodies are not wound up 
and carried out from before the altar and buried. If 
such were the case in our day who would venture to 
the house of God. Certainly none but those who 
regard themselves as stewards of God's manifold 
bounties ; and no Christian can regard himself in 
any other light without incurring God's displeasure. 

Shall we infer, therefore, that the Lord our God ia 



156 SERMONS. 

any the less a jealous God than he was when he de- 
clared himself so to be from the smoking summit of 
Mount Sinai ? Or is Christ less anxious for the pu- 
rity of the Church which he purchased with his own 
blood ? Or is the Holy Ghost less sensitive % These 
questions can be answered only in the negative. The 
Triune God is the same, yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. Whatever reason may be given for his forbear- 
ance with the idolaters of the present age, the sin 
itself is no less offensive in his sight than it was in 
the days of Ananias and Sapphira. Judgment, that 
is, the immediate, visible infliction of punishment for 
sin, has always been his strange work. Dead bodies 
are seldom thrown across the portals of the sanctu- 
ary ; but we read of those " who have a name to 
live while they are dead." And there are dead souls 
within the Church ; nominally members of Christ's 
mystical body ; professedly his servants, but in real- 
ity covetous men who are idolaters ; trying to serve 
two masters, and failing in the attempt ; laying up 
treasure on earth, and thus constantly and of set pur- 
pose disobeying Christ. And all the while — O the 
wondrous riches of his grace ! — Christ intercedes in 
their behalf, and they are not suddenly cut off. He 
waits for their repentance and return, that he may 
be gracious to them and restore them to spiritual 
life, and give them an inheritance in the kingdom of 
God. 

This is, indeed, a lamentable picture, but all its 
dark hues are owing to its truth. The question arises, 
What is to be done ? How is this state of things to 
be remedied ? In reply, we are constrained to admit 



COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. 



157 



that with reference to many there is no hope of rem- 
edy. As was said of Ephraim in the olden time, 
" They are joined to their idols." We may as w T ell 
let them alone. But there are multitudes who are 
not yet wholly given up to idolatry, whose consciences 
trouble them when they think of broken vows, and 
violated pledges, and a Saviour slighted, dishonored, 
and almost forsaken. 

For their sakes, and for the sake of those who 
would avoid the rock upon which so many have been 
wrecked, suffer us very briefly to point out the only 
and the all-sufficient remedy. It is a recurrence to 
the great first principle that you are a steward, and 
that there is one great object upon which He who 
has made you a steward has set his heart. That ob- 
ject is the dissemination of the Gospel among the 
children of men. In the judgment of the Master, 
all things else, so far as our race is concerned, are 
secondary and subordinate. To clothe the naked 
and to give bread to the hungry, to visit the sick and 
the imprisoned, the widow and the fatherless, are 
actions always well-pleasing in his sight, and they 
carry their own reward with them. But they are all 
bounded in their effects upon the suffering and the 
sorrowful by this present world. A few fleeting 
years, more or less, are, and will be seen by and by, 
to be of most inconsiderable moment. By the differ- 
ence between time and eternity, which is absolutely 
infinite, we are taught to estimate the relative im- 
portance of blessings conferred upon the body and 
upon the soul. In a very little while it will bef of no 
consequence to the poor man that he went hungry to 



158 



SERMONS. 



his grave, or that his stay on earth was shortened be- 
cause he was unvisited in his sickness and tmcared 
for by professing Christians. 

And so with all other calls for benevolent objects. 
The promotion of Sunday-schools, the printing of 
Bibles, the circulation of tracts, all good in them- 
selves and worthy of attention, are all secondary to 
the preaching of the Gospel of Christ ; and all only 
important so far as tending to make man acquainted 
with the remedy for sin, as provided in the sacrificial 
death of the Son of God. 

Suppose, for a moment, that all other benevolent 
objects were fully provided for and attended to, and 
this one, the preaching of the gospel, neglected and 
uncared for. The wail of want is silenced, and the 
tears of affliction and worldly sorrow gently wiped 
away. But no light is thrown upon a world that lies 
beyond the grave, and no prospect of immortality is 
revealed to those who sit in darkness. Of what avail 
is an abundance of the bread that perisheth to souls 
famishing for the bread of life ? There may be end- 
less weeping in the world of woe from eyes undim- 
med by tears in the present life. Or let philanthropy 
extend her vision and expand her beneficence by 
printing the Bible in myriads of copies and in all 
languages, and let religious tracts be scattered like 
the leaves in autumn ; still would remain the ever- 
lasting truth that it pleases God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe ; still pealing 
from the lips of Him by whom and for whom all 
things were created, his last command, " Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." 



COVETOUSJSTESS IS IDOLATRY. 



159 



His last command ? May we not call it his one 
command, comprehending, as it does, all others, and 
disobedience to which renders compliance with every 
other, if that were possible, a Vain thing ? How 
plainly we see the folly of the sinner who attempts to 
compromise the duty of repentance by relieving the 
wants of the poor, or by visiting the sick, or by giv- 
ing of his substance to build hospitals or churches. 
"With equal clearness we ought to see, and we shall 
one day see, the far greater folly of stewards of the 
Lord Jesus, who profess willingness to do and actually 
do many benevolent and praiseworthy actions, but 
neglect utterly, or perform half-heartedly and grudg- 
ingly, the one paramount duty of sending the glad 
tidings of the Gospel to every creature ! 

And why has this duty been enjoined upon us ? 
At Christ's disposal were other agencies, in number 
scarcely less than infinite, that might have been em- 
ployed. In the exceeding riches of his grace it 
pleased him to take redeemed sinners into a copart- 
nership with himself in effecting the salvation of a 
lost world. For that object he suffered and died and 
rose again ; and then said, " Go ye into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature." He gave 
us that commission, 

First, as a test of obedience. "We are his disciples, 
yea, his friends, " if we do whatsoever he commands 
us." His yoke is easy, and his burden is light ; but 
it is a yoke, it is a burden ; and if we would be his 
disciples we must wear the one and bear the other. 
Keen and cutting the reproach, " "Why call ye me 
Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say." And 



160 



SERMONS. 



O, how grievously lias this command been slighted 
and neglected ! How many professing Christians 
have lived, and died, and gone to the judgment-seat, 
without having heeded it for a moment ! How many 
such may still be found within the sacred inclosure 
of the Church ! But He gave us this command, 

Secondly, as a source of happiness. The religion 
of Christ has for its object man's happiness here as 
well as hereafter. But what multitudes there are 
who profess, but who do not enjoy religion ! And 
what is the reason ? The two expressions, if not iden- 
tical, ought to be very nearly synonymous. Should 
the enjoyments of religion lessen as we journey home- 
ward ? It seems to be expected by many as a matter 
of necessity that they will. The happiness of a new- 
born soul is proverbial, and the contrast between that 
soul and the older disciple is painful to dwell upon. 
The reason is not far to seek. The purest source of 
enjoyment for man or angels arises from doing his 
will. Perfect obedience in either world results in 
perfect bliss. And as necessarily when obedience 
becomes slack and irksome ; when excuses are sought 
for neglecting duty, and it is neglected, disquiet and 
uneasiness chase away enjoyment, and the professor, 
if not miserable, is far from being happy. It cannot 
be otherwise. An angel in heaven in similar cir- 
cumstances would lose all his enjoyment, and dis- 
obedience would convert his dwelling-place into a 
hell. 

And it is not a favored few, merely, who may be 
happy in their religious enjoyments all through life. 
In this respect there is a near equality among all the 



COVETOUSXESS IS IDOLATRY. 



161 



disciples of the Saviour. As it was with the manna 
that fell in the wilderness, " He that gathered much 
had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no 
lack," so is it especially with reference to the enjoy- 
ment arising from obedience to the Saviour's last 
command. Here, the rich and the poor meet to- 
gether. It does not seem to be a difficult matter for 
the most indigent to make his contribution bear a 
relative proportion to that of the most wealthy. 
And it is not so much at the actual amount given 
that the Saviour looks, as at the proportion between 
what is given and what remains. This great truth 
he taught most clearly by his eulogy of the poor 
widow. The command is addressed equally to every 
disciple, because Christ would have them all equally 
and supremely happy in their mutual co-operation to 
send the Gospel to every creature. 

Finally, just here, where duty and enjoyment meet 
in the test of obedience and the source of happiness, 
is found the preventive and the remedy for covetous- 
ness, which is idolatry. It is earnest, faithful, un- 
wavering compliance with the last command of a 
crucified but risen Saviour. In infinite wisdom was 
the commission by him who well knew that, as an 
unavoidable result of Christianity, wealth w^ould flow 
in upon its disciples. He saw, too, that, as it had 
been in all ages, so it would be in all the future, the 
disciples' greatest danger would arise from a tempta- 
tion to set up idols in opposition to the true God. And 
he provided the antidote and the remedy in the direc- 
tion to preach the Gospel to every creature ; to preach 
it by educating and sending forth and sustaining the 



162 



SERMONS. 



living messenger. Here is his answer to the ever- 
recurring question, " Having more than I require for 
my own necessities, what shall I do with this increas- 
ing surplus of my Lord's money ?" No disciple may 
say, with the rich fool, " I have no room where to 
bestow my fruits." 

The question, How much, or what proportion ? is 
left for you to answer, for you alone. No one has 
any authority to demand any per centage of your 
income for the special object so dear to the Master's 
heart. He makes no such demand. He leaves it 
with you, with each. 

T may add, however, two or three observations. 
And first, it is for our sakes that Jesus makes no pos- 
itive demand for any specific amount. He might 
have done so, and just as easily, he might take that 
amount ; yea, take all that you have, and leave you 
to grapple with a life-long poverty. He knows, how- 
ever, that it is only by a voluntary offering on our 
part that we can secure a blessing ; only by giving 
that we can escape that propensity to covetousness 
and idolatry which seems to be a part of our fallen 
nature. 

Let me remind you, further, that every one of 
us " shall give account of himself to God," and 
that, therefore, it will be unwise and unsafe to 
make the liberality or the churlishness of any 
other steward a standard by which to measure your 
own. To thee personally will come in that day 
the command, " Give an account of thy steward- 
ship." 

Need I repeat the self-evident truth that it is no 



COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATEY. 163 

easier to deceive the Holy Ghost now, and none the 
less dreadful to attempt it, than it was in the days 
of Ananias ? or remind yon that covetousness is as 
truly idolatry now as ever it was ; and that no cov- 
etous man, who is an idolater, hath, or can have, 
any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of 
God? 



164 



SERMONS. 



VIII. 

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his 
disciples, which are not written in this book i but these are 
written, that ye might believe that jesus is the christ, the 
Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through 
his name.— John XX, 30, 31. 

By the word " signs," in the text, we understand 
miracles, both words being indifferently used in the 
Old and Uew Testament. " Thou shalt take this rod 
in thine hands," said the Almighty to Moses, " where- 
with thou shalt do signs :" and Jesus said, " Except 
ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." 

But what is a miracle ? The definitions of the 
word are numerous, some giving it too great a lati- 
tude of meaning; and others, perhaps, needlessly 
contracting it. A miracle is any action, event, or 
effect, contrary or superior to the established laws of 
nature. For admitting that there is a supreme Being — 
and our argument, at present, is not with those who 
deny one — a Being who has all power in heaven and 
on earth, it is evident that no action can be per- 
formed, no event can take place, no effect be pro- 
duced, contrary to the laws he has established, only 
by an exertion of his own power, immediately or 
through the instrumentality of another. Will it be 
said, in opposition to our definition, that miracles 



THE DIVINITY OF CHEIST. 



165 



were wrought in olden time by magicians, by sooth- 
sayers, and the whole race of false prophets ? we an- 
swer : Either those performances were not miracles, 
but mere deceptive impositions ; or, if they were, 
the power by which they were wrought must have 
come from God ; or else we shall run into the absurd- 
ity of imagining some being more powerful than the 
Deity. 

It falls not within our design, at present, to discuss 
those wonders or signs wrought by others, whether 
from a good or evil purpose, or to spend time in 
pointing out the difference between real and pretended 
miracles. The doctrine deduced from the text, to an 
elucidation of which we shall confine our attention, 
is this : 

THE MIRACLES WROUGHT BY THE LORD JESUS ARE 

A proof of His divinity. " They were written that 
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God." 

But why attempt to establish his divinity from his 
recorded acts merely ? Are there not stronger argu- 
ments? Did he not claim all the prerogatives of 
Deity ? Did he not say, " I and the Father are 
one % 99 Yes, verily. It is a doctrine that has not 
been left to conjecture, or to the mere force of infer- 
ence. We contend that it has been clearly and ex- 
plicitly revealed ; and yet, how often is it the case 
that the most positive declarations are so interpreted 
as to mean anything or nothing ; that men admitting 
in its full extent the truth of the revelation which 
God has given us will, nevertheless, so interpret that 



166 



SERMONS. 



truth as to favor their own preconceived creed ! We 
pass by the positive declarations of the Bible on this 
subject, not because they are not sufficient, but be- 
cause we esteem the miracles of the Saviour as 
affording strong circumstantial evidence of his divin- 
ity. We contend that his miracles, even had we no 
other arguments, are sufficient to prove what the text 
tells us they were recorded to establish, that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God — the Son of God in such 
a sense as no other being ever was or claimed to be — 
the Word that was in the beginning, that was with 
God, that was God. In doing this we have a twofold 
object. We would, if it were possible, induce those 
whom we believe to be in error, in fatally delusive er- 
ror on this subject, calmly and carefully to re-examine 
it, to weigh impartially the evidence we shall bring 
forward. We would, instrumentally at least, inspire a 
feeling within them similar to that which actuated 
Thomas when, addressing this same Jesus, he ex- 
claimed, " My Lord and my God ! n Whether suc- 
cessful in this object or not, we shall at least 
strengthen the faith and increase the confidence of 
those who have believed in his name. It is an object 
worthy of our highest concern to add, in ever so 
small a degree, to the stability and firmness of that 
faith upon which, like a rock in the midst of a bois- 
terous ocean, the humble disciple may rest secure 
when the winds blow, and the rains beat, and the 
floods threaten to ingulf him. 

1. With reference, then, to the miracles of Christ, 
we remark, in the first place, that t they were numer- 
ous. Had we said innumerable, we should perhaps 



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 



167 



be warranted in the assertion by the declaration of 
the author of our text in a subsequent chapter. 
" There are also," says he, " many other things which 
Jesus did, which, if they were written, I suppose the 
world would not contain the books that should be 
written." This saying 8f the evangelist of course is 
not to be understood literally ; but, understand it in 
what way we will, it undoubtedly implies that but a 
very small part of Christ's miracles were recorded. 
Probably not a day, perhaps scarcely an hour of his 
ministerial life passed away, in which he did not ex- 
hibit some exertion of his miraculous power. He 
went about doing good. That his recorded acts are 
immensely disproportionate to the miracles which he 
actually performed, is evident from many incidental 
expressions in the gospels. There went out a fame 
of him through all the region round about. Great 
multitudes followed him, and he healed their sick, 
and he healed them all. " And in the same hour he 
cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of 
evil spirits ; and unto many that were blind he gave 
sight." We need not dwell at further length on this 
point. It leads naturally to our second remark, 
which is, 

2. The miracles of Christ were wrought publicly / 
in the presence of immense numbers of people. There 
was no mysterious privacy, no studied ceremony to 
make them appear wonderful, or to provoke the 
attention of the people. Crowds followed and sur- 
rounded him ; what he did was not done in a corner, 
but openly before the world, in the immediate pres- 
ence of enemies as well as friends ; surrounded by 



168 



SERM0X3. 



the captious infidel, the self-righteous pbarisee, and 
the scoffing scribe. Indeed, it seems as if the evan- 
gelists selected rather those miracles which were 
wrought before the greatest number of people, $s if 
aware that in after times objections might be raised 
to the truth of their testimony. Hence, among the 
vast number of miracles from which they had to se- 
lect, we find some recorded by two, and others by 
three of the evangelists ; and those which are so re- 
corded, are generally the miracles which were wrought 
before the greatest multitudes. We find, moreover, 
that there is one which each of the four has trans- 
mitted to us at full length, namely, the miracle of the 
loaves and fishes. How happened it that each should 
have chosen to record that one ? It did not manifest 
greater power or more goodness than many of the 
others. The simple fact that it was witnessed — that 
it was seen and felt and realized by an immense con- 
course — probably by as many as fifteen thousand, 
(for there were five thousand men besides women and 
children,) seems to have been the only reason why 
each evangelist should so particularly have recorded 
it and its attendant circumstances. The Founder of 
Christianity has disappeared, says the caviler ; ye 
say that he has ascended into heaven, and this book 
is given to the world as evidence of his superhuman 
powers, of his transcendent goodness ; but who saw 
any of these miracles ? Where is he that was born 
blind ? Where is the paralytic that was healed ? 
Where is he that ye say was raised from the dead ? 
Alas ! Death hath again summoned him, and he is 
gone. Then, indeed, might the scoffer have railed, 



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 



169 



and the skeptic doubted, and infidels of every name, 
like their legitimate successors of the present day, 
enjoyed a fancied triumph. But stop : who is this 
bending with the weight of years ? Who is this with 
his head bowed, and silvered with the frosts of sev- 
enty winters ? Hear him : " I saw Jesus break the 
bread, and lift his eyes to heaven ; I heard him give 
thanks, I fed upon the bread his power created ; and 
though it was threescore years ago, yet shall I never 
forget that hoar. "What is written here is true, for I 
was there" Thus for a long time after the ascen- 
sion of Christ, living witnesses were not wanting 
to testify to the reality of the miracles that had been 
wrought, to bear evidence that there had been no de- 
ception, no fraud. It was reserved for later ages, 
when centuries had elapsed, for man in the plenitude 
of his self-sufficiency to hazard the opinions, eagerly 
swallowed by those who feared the truth, that, after 
all, the evidence of the divine authenticity of Chris- 
tianity is doubtful. Thus onward, step by step, one 
conceives the evidence to be weak ; the next pro- 
claims that it is weak, that it is inconclusive and 
insufficient ; and, eventually, so rapidly and with 
such splendor does the light of reason, as it has been 
called, diffuse its beams, that in the opinion of its 
votaries there is no longer room for doubt itself — 'tis 
a whole system of barefaced falsehood and unblush- 
ing deception ! Strange that none of the cotempo- 
raries of the evangelists should ha^e exposed the 
deception and proved the falsehood of the inspired 
penmen ! 

3. To proceed with our subject. It has been ob- 



170 



SERMONS. 



served that man, finite in intellect, and seeing only 
through a glass darkly, is unable to comprehend God, 
an infinite, essential spirit ; that he cannot, by search- 
ing, find out the Almighty to perfection. Hence it 
became necessary in the revelation of himself, that 
man might form some idea of the incomprehensible, 
to unfold unto us his attributes. It was not enough 
to say, " God is a spirit," an eternal spirit. And in 
prosecuting our inquiry we ask, What are the attri- 
butes of Jehovah ? For if he who wrought these 
miracles were really and truly God, they will un- 
doubtedly manifest the attributes of God. In other 
words, if God were their author we shall find his 
attributes displayed in them. 

The peculiar glory of the Deity is goodness. "I 
beseech thee," said Moses, " show me thy glory." " I 
will make," said the Uncreated, " I will make my 
goodness pass before thee." Search, then, the record 
of the deeds of Jesus, and what do we find but in- 
stances of goodness throughout his whole career ? Is 
there in his whole history one solitary act recorded, 
one deed wrought, that was not a proof of his love to 
the children of men ? Of his forbearance, his long- 
suffering, his goodness ? Indeed, there is only one 
which at the very first sight does not bear the most 
convincing evidence that they were wrought for the 
special good of man. I allude to his cursing the bar- 
ren fig tree which he passed on his way to Bethany, 
and which withered at his malediction. Now let it 
be borne in mind that this tree was not any man's 
private property. It grew by the wayside. No indi- 
vidual was therefore even temporarily injured by our 



THE DIVINITY OF CHEIST. 



171 



Lord's conduct ; and his design was evidently to do 
good. He not only gave evidence of his power, 
which tended to strengthen the faith of his disciples, 
but he also gave to all who saw the transaction, yea, 
to all who might hear of it to the latest period of 
time, an awful warning against unfruitfulness. 
" Herein is my Father glorified, that ye hear much 
fruits 

See him, on his way through the towns and vil- 
lages, cleansing the leper and healing the palsied, un- 
stopping the ears of the deaf, causing the dumb to 
speak, casting out devils, 

1 While from thick films he'll purge the visual ray, 
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day." 

Hear him, in accents* of the tenderest compassion, 
when he meets the aged and desolate widow following 
to the tomb her only son, her last hope, hear him say 
unto her, " Weep not. At the grave of him who 
had been dead four days, behold him shed the sympa- 
thetic tear with the afflicted sisters of him whom he 
loved. These, however, are but small portions of his 
manifested goodness. It extended not merely to his 
friends ; it reached, it embraced, even his bitterest 
enemies. When Peter, with characteristic rashness, 
smote off with his sword the ear of the high priest's 
servant, he reached forth his hand and healed it, 
either by creating a new one, or, what was scarcely 
less miraculous, by restoring the one that had been 
cut o"ff to perfect soundness. 

Once, and once only, did he refuse to exert his 
wondrous power. It was when his disciples, not 



172 



SERMONS. 



knowing what spirit they were of, besought him to 
call fire from heaven to destroy his enemies. He 
came not to destroy but to save. 

Indeed, to notice all the evidences of his goodness 
would be to transcribe the greater part of his event- 
ful history. Follow him to his last hour. Hear him 
with his last breath, surrounded by those who had 
lacerated his body and nailed him to the accursed 
cross, when with a word, a gesture, a look, he might 
have overwhelmed them with utter destruction, hear 
his cry, " Father, forgive them, they know not what 
they do." 

I am aware that more than this is necessary to 
establish the doctrine of the text. . More is at hand. 
I know it will be said, goodness is a communicable 
attribute of Jehovah. Let us. go a step further. 

4. One peculiar attribute of the Deity is ubiquity 
or omnipresence. "Am I a God at hand and not 
afar off i " saith the Lord ; " Do I not fill heaven and 
earth ? " Whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
And although this is beyond our depth, and the man- 
ner of it inconceivable by finite mind, yet it is a 
truth which he himself has condescended to reveal, 
and one that is a source of constant comfort and joy 
to the believer. Let us look, then, at the recorded 
acts of the Lord Jesus. Do we find any evidence 
that he possessed this attribute ? Surely no mortal, 
no creature, of whatever rank in the scale of being, 
ever possessed this attribute ; no good being ever 
claimed it. It is absolutely incommunicable. Should 
we, then, find ample evidence in the recorded acts of 
Jesus of Nazareth, in the signs which are written in 



THE DIVINITY OF CHKIST. 



173 



this book, that he was actually present in more places 
than one at the same time, what will it prove ? Will 
it not establish his divinity beyond the possibility of 
an honest doubt ? establish it in defiance of the reck- 
lessness of the dishonest skeptic ? 

Matthew informs us of the case of a Canaanitish 
or Syrophenician woman, who, with great earnestness 
and importunity, besought the Saviour to heal her 
sick daughter. For the trial of her faith, Jesus at 
first paid little attention to her entreaties. " I am 
not sent," said he, " but to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel," and "it is not meet to cast the children's' 
bread to the dogs." "Truth, Lord," she replied, 
" yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their 
master's table." " Then Jesus answered and said 
unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto 
thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was 
made whole from that very hour." Matt, xv, 22-28. 
So again with the centurion's servant, at home, sick 
of the palsy, grievously tormented. " I will come," 
said Jesus in answer to the request of his master, " I 
will come and heal him." But the centurion an- 
swered, " I am not worthy that thou shouldst come 
under my roof: speak the word only and my servant 
shall be healed." u And Jesus saith unto him, Go 
thy way, and his servant was healed in the selfsame 
hour." Matt, viii, 5-13. Let it be observed here 
with what particularity of emphasis the evangelists 
dwell on the fact that those who were healed were 
healed in the selfsame hour : from that very hour, 
Jesus spake and it was done. The healing power 
was communicated by a word of his, though at the 



SERMONS. 



distance of miles from the grievously tormented suf- 
ferers. 

But tlie case of the nobleman's son, as recorded by 
John, is still more explicit. " When lie heard that 
Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went 
unto him, and besought him that he would come 
down to Capernaum and heal his son ; for he was at 
the point of death." " Sir," said he, " come down 
ere my child die." " Jesus saith unto him, Go thy 
way ; thy son liveth." And as the nobleman was on 
his return homeward, his servants met him, bringing 
the joyful news, " Thy son liveth." Then inquired 
he of them the hour when he began to amend. And 
they replied, " Yesterday, at the seventh hour," the 
very hour in which Jesus spake the word ; he did 
what ? began to amend, no, but " the fever left him." 
John iv, 46-53. 

Now as it is impossible, even in imagination, to 
conceive of a mere man performing any act, much 
less a miraculous cure, at a distance from where he 
is ; as it is impossible even in idea to separate the 
power exerted by any individual from the individual 
himself, for it is an established axiom, where an indi- 
vidual acts, there he is, it follows that Jesus must at 
the same moment have been at Cana in Galilee with 
his disciples, and at Capernaum by the bedside of the 
sick man. Does not this indicate ubiquity? By 
what power other than that which fills all space, 
could such acts be performed ? Do they not attest 
the omnipresence of him who wrought them ? It 
would seem, from the narrative of the case last re- 
ferred to, that at least one family thought so ; for it 



THE DIVINITY OF CHEIST. 



175 



is added that the nobleman believed, and his whole 
house. Believed what ? That the sick man had 
been cured ? That he who healed him was an extra- 
ordinary man ? It would appear little better than 
trifling, had this been all, to give so much prominence 
to his " believing, with his whole house." 

Let it be observed, with reference to these miracles, 
that there was no appearance of any thing like dele- 
gated power ; that there was no intermediate agent 
invoked or instrumentality employed, no prayer to, 
or acknowledgment of, a superior Being. " Thy son 
liveth :" " Go thy way :" " Be it done even as thou 
wilt." 

5. Again, Omniscience is an attribute of Jehovah. 
Great is the Lord, and his understanding is infinite. 
The darkness hideth not from him, but the night 
shineth as the day. " He that formed the eye," 
saith the Psalmist, " shall he not see ? " that is, 
granting that the eye was formed by some being, 
shall he not see % " He that formed the ear, shall he 
not hear ? " Doth not he who gave all these pleasing 
and wonderful faculties to man possess them in the 
highest degree of perfection ? 

Let us examine, then, the recorded acts of the Lord 
Jesus. If we find in them any evidences of omnis- 
cience, our faith in him as very God will be abund- 
antly strengthened. " Lord," said the Galilean fish- 
erman, "we have toiled all night and have taken 
nothing." Luke v, 5. " Let down the net on the 
right side of the ship," said the Saviour. Having 
done this, their net was so full that it came near 
breaking. " Take a hook," said he to one of his dis- 



176 



SERMONS. 



ciples, " and cast it into the sea, and in the mouth of 
the first fish that cometh up, when thou hast opened 
his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money." Matt, 
xvii, 27. Now shall we ask, how came the money 
there ? or, how came it that that fish, of all the myr- 
iads that sported in the waters, should at that time 
take hold of Peter's hook ? Nay, but we ask, how 
knew Jesus to what particular spot the fisherman 
would' go ? how knew he that in that fish's mouth 
money just sufficient for their purpose would be 
found ! how knew he that that fish would be taken ? 

"Who is this whose eye penetrates the abyss of the 
dark waters ? Who is this, so intimately acquainted, 
even with the lowest class of living creatures, as to 
know when and where they are in their wild gambols 
and chance-directed sports ? 

But the evidences of his omniscience rest not here. 
His knowledge extended to the depths of the human 
heart. " The heart is deceitful above all things, who 
can know it ? " Surely none but he who created it, 
none but God. It is man's province to look on the 
outward appearance, but " God looketh upon the 
heart." "Thou," said Solomon in his dedicatory 
prayer, " even thou only knowest the hearts of the 
children of men." In such truths as these, how are 
we to account for the frequent instances in which 
Christ replied to the thoughts of his hearers otherwise 
than by attributing to him this prerogative of the 
Deity ? In several instances the evangelists notice, 
in an apparently casual manner, the readiness and 
promptness with which he answered the thoughts of 
those around him. These facts must be familiar to 



THE DIVIXITY OF CHRIST. 



177 



every reader of the Scriptures, and consequently 
need not be minutely specified. 

His knowledge extended not only to the present 
thoughts, but back to the past, and forward to the 
future. " Come," said the woman of Samaria, 
" Come, see a man that told me all things ever I 
did." He foretold the manner and time of his own 
death. When his chosen twelve were seated round 
him at the last supper, his eye pierced the breast of 
the traitor, and exposed him to his favorite John. 
" Thou art Peter," said he at an early period of his 
ministry, " and on this rock will I build my Church." 
Near the consummation of his wondrous work, turn- 
ing to Peter, he said, " This night, ere the cock crow, 
thou wilt deny me," not once, but " thrice." What ! 
the bold Peter, the boldest of the twelve, he who 
drew his sword in defense of his master, who was 
ready to go with him to imprisonment and to death, he 
deny his Lord ! Though all should deny him, surely 
Peter would not, could not do it. But, alas! his 
history is familiar to you, and is at once a lamentable 
instance of the folly of human self-confidence, and a 
proof of the unerring prescience of the Saviour, of 
his intimate acquaintance with the human heart. 

6. In the sacred Scriptures we find omnipotence 
attributed to Jehovah. He is the Almighty. Was 
Jesus of Nazareth omnipotent ? Did he in reality 
possess, as he distinctly declared after his resurrec* 
tion, all power in heaven and in earth \ Certainly 
there can be but one Almighty — but one possessed of 
all power. The evidences of his omnipotence are 
not, perhaps, to be gleaned from isolated acts, but 



178 



SERMONS. 



from the united whole of the " signs " which " Jesus 
truly did." We do not appeal to his speaking the 
dead to life ; to his walking on the waves ; to his 
creative power in supplying bread to the hungry. We 
do not refer to his touch, giving sight to the blind, 
hearing to the deaf, soundness to the sick; to his 
voice, heard and obeyed by the winds and the waves, 
by devils, by the newly dead, by the dead and buried 
a long time. To none of these signs singly and alone, 
but to the whole, added to the fact before alluded to, 
that he was always ready, always the same. To this 
sum total do we point as evidence of the omnipotence 
of Jesus. 

It may, perhaps, be as well here to notice an ob- 
jection that has been urged against the doctrine ad- 
vanced. It is urged that admitting the truth of the 
record, the reality of all the miracles attributed to 
Jesus Christ, there is not evidence sufficient to con- 
clude that he was anything more than a holy, just, 
and benevolent man ; that he was a prophet, and one 
high in favor with the great I AM. For, it is further 
urged, miracles have been wrought, cures have been 
effected, events have been foretold, nay, the dead 
have been raised by holy men under the old and the 
new dispensation. Suppose we admit the truth of all 
this, what follows ? Why, that Jehovah, for wise 
purposes, has in such instances conferred upon man 
the power by which such miracles have been wrought ; 
that it was a delegated power. This indeed has been 
freely admitted, nay, gloried in, by the individuals 
themselves. Look at the miracles of Moses and 
Aaron, of Joshua and Elijah, and more especially of 



THE DIVINITY OF CHKIST. 



179 



the apostles. Did they ever work miracles in their 
own name, by their own inherent power ? Far from 
it. " Say unto Pharaoh, I AM hath sent you." At 
the memorable time when the sun was arrested in his 
course, we are told that Joshua, in the first place, 
spake unto the Loed ; and immediately after it is 
added, " There was no day like that, before it or after 
it, that the Loed hearkened unto the voice of a man." 
Josh, x, 12-14. "Where is," said the successor of 
the Tishbite — where is Elijah % no — " where is the 
Loed God of Elijah ? " " Ye men of Israel," said 
Peter, " why marvel ye at this ? or why look ye so 
earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holi- 
ness we had done this ? " Acts iii, 12. Such conduct, 
such language, is precisely what might be expected 
from good men, anxious that the glory should be 
given to whom it was due ; that the power should be 
ascribed to Him from whom they derived it. 

Contrast now this language with the conduct of 
Christ. Does he ever give the glory of his works to 
another % Does he invoke the name of a superior 
power ? He does not. So far from it, that he more 
than intimates, throughout all his miracles, that the 
works were his own, and his own only. To the leper 
he said, " I will, be thou clean ;" to the infirm 
woman, " Thou art loosed from thine infirmity to 
the widow's son, " Young man, I say unto thee, 
arise ;" to Lazarus, " Come forth." To the winds he 
uttered his rebuke. To the waves he said, " Peace, 
be still ;" of the sick man, " I will come and heal him." 

The question then recurs, Were these miracles 
wrought by delegated or inherent power ? If by the 



180 



SERMONS. 



former, what are we to think of their author ? A 
deceiver, an impostor ? Hold, who dares venture an 
insinuation like this? And yet there is no alterna- 
tive, absolutely none. He claimed to work them in his 
own name. He professed that they were wrought by 
his own power. If they were not, what was he ? If 
they were, he was the Almighty, the everlasting God. 

7. There remains yet another description of the 
wonderful works of Christ, as evidence of his divine 
nature, to which we have not adverted. We allude 
to his forgiving sins. That this is the exclusive pre- 
rogative of Jehovah is alike evident from the decla- 
rations of Scripture and the deductions of common 
sense. u Bless the Lord, O my soul," says the Psalm- 
ist, " who forgiveth all thine iniquities." " There is 
forgiveness with thee, O Lord." And " who," said 
the scribes and the Pharisees, " can forgive sins but 
God only ? " Most certainly no one. For what is 
sin ? A transgression of God's law. "Who, then, can 
forgive, but he against whose law the sinner has trans- 
gressed ? Listen a moment, then, to the language of 
Jesus : " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven 
thee," " Go in peace and sin no more ;" " That ye 
may know that the Son of man hath power on earth 
to forgive sins." What language is this ? Who is it 
that thus speaketh ? Who is it that blots out the 
record against the sinner in the register of heaven ? 
that wipes away every stain from the polluted con- 
science ? that says, " Go in peace ? " 

It may possibly be objected here, that those to whom 
Jesus spake pardon had repented ; that the Father 
had forgiven them ; and that Jesus was only commis- 



THE DIVINITY OF CHEIST. 



181 



sioned to apprise them of the fact. Now this is but 
a supposition, a lame supposition, and contrary to the 
evidence left on record. He does not say, " Thou hast 
repented and art forgiven," " Because thou art sorry 
for thy sins, thou art pardoned," but " Thy faith 
hath saved thee." Faith in whom ? "I believe that 
thou art Christ, the Son of God." Believing this in 
the heart, the pardon came, the soul was justified. 
" Yerily I say unto you, her sins which are many 
are all forgiven her." In confirmation of the truth 
of these remarks, look for a moment at his last exhi- 
bition of saving power, while he tabernacled in the 
flesh. In the presence of his enemies, stretched 
bleeding upon the cross, a few moments only before 
he dismissed his spirit, he said to the malefactor by his 
side, " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 

It has been observed that we have this one instance 
of a souTs finding forgiveness in his last hour, that 
none might despair ; and but this one,, that none 
might presume. We think, also, it may have been 
recorded that none might attribute salvation to works ; 
to sorrow for sin ; to bitterness of grief ; to tears of 
anguish. It was faith in the Lord Jesus that in the 
days of his incarnation brought forgiveness to the 
sinner. It is by an exercise of the same faith now, 
that the eyes of the spiritually blind are opened ; that 
the fetters of the bondman are broken ; that the dead 
are quickened. In the language of the latter part of 
the text — upon which, by the way of improvement, 
we have a few remarks to make — it is by believing 
that we have life through his name. 

But is not sorrow for sin then necessary ? Is not 



182 



SERMONS. 



repentance toward God essential to salvation ? They 
are indeed. They are both necessary in order that 
the sinner may he prepared to believe. They are pre- 
requisites to justifying faith. But there is nothing, 
there can be nothing meritorious in them. "Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." 
" That believing ye may have life through his name." 

Again, the progressive advancement of the Chris- 
tian is attributable to the same cause. " I am come, 
not only that they might have life, but that they 
might have it m,ore abundantly " John x, 10. Raised 
from spiritual death to life, the Christian is aptly com- 
pared to a new-born babe. Food is necessary that he 
may grow up to the stature of a man. It is here 
provided for him ; " I," said Jesus, " I am the bread 
of life, the bread that came down from heaven." He 
is the tree of life no longer guarded by cherubim and 
a flaming sword, but inviting all to approach " and 
take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." 
Gen. iii, 24. So long as the Christian continues in 
his vital union to Christ, like the branches of the vine, 
he derives thence sap, sustenance, vigor, strength, 
fruitfulness. " But as the branch cannot bear fruit 
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, 
except ye abide in me." John xv, 4. He is made 
unto us sanctification, as well as redemption. (1 Cor. 
i, 30.) Hence the untiring effort of every growing 
Christian is to cleave closer and closer to his beloved 
embrace ; and his unceasing prayer is, " Evermore 
give us this bread." John vi, 34. 

But, further, the light of our subject dispels the 
darkness of the tomb. It answers the momentous, 



THE DIVINITY OF CHKIST. 



183 



the absorbing question, " If a man die, shall lie live 
again ? " 

u Shall spring visit the mouldering urn ? 

Shall day dawn on the night of the grave-?" 

" Believing, we have life through his name," the 
name of that Jesus who declared himself the resur- 
rection, as well as the life. " The hour is coming in 
which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, 
and shall come forth " when this corruptible shall 
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on im- 
mortality." " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
It indicates also the source of the bliss of the re- 
" deemed in heaven. The crowns of gold, the palms 
of victory, the river that maketh glad the eity of 
God ; the golden pavements of that city, and its 
walls and gates of jasper, may be, perhaps are, mere 
figures used to convey some idea to man's finite in- 
tellect of the happiness of heaven. What are they 
all, compared with life through his name, a vital, an 
eternal union with Christ \ "As thou, Father, art 
in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in 
us. I in thee, and thou in me." John xvii, 21-28. 
This is heaven, this the glory reserved for them that 
love God : one with Christ, as he is one with the 
Father. 

Again, we may learn from our subject one reason 
of the little success of the Christian ministry in many 
places. Christ and life through his name have not 
always had sufficient prominence in the labors of the 
ministry of reconciliation. Not indeed that he has 
always been kept out of sight, or in the back 
ground. But where he has not been the Alpha and 



184 



SERMONS. 



the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and 
the last, the all and in all, what warrant was there to 
expect, what right to look for, the outpouring of his 
Spirit, the manifestation of the life-giving power of 
his name ? The first lesson that the embassador of 
the cross should learn — a lesson, the influences of 
which should be ever present with him, in the closet, 
the study, the pulpit, everywhere — is found in those 
impressive words of Christ, " Without me ye can do 
nothing." John xv, 5. Here is the secret of the suc- 
cess which crowned the efforts of the apostles. " We 
preach Christ crucified ;" u Christ the power of God 
and the wisdom of God." 1 Cor. i, 23, 24. " I de- 
termined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ and him crucified." 1 Cor. ii, 2. " Yea, 
doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the ex- 
cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." 
Phil, ii, 8. For " I can do all things through Christ 
which strengtheneth me." Col. iv, 13. 

Finally, we may learn from our subject why it is 
that any finally perish. It is not because there was 
not a sufficiency of merit in the atoning blood to em- 
brace every soul of man. It was an infinite sacrifice. 
It is not because any were passed by ; " God is no 
respecter of persons." There is no limit to the pro- 
visions of the Gospel, to the invitations of Christ. 
" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." " Whosoever will, 
let him take of the water of life freely." " These 
things are written that thou mayest believe ; that be- 
lieving thou mayest have life through his name." 
Will you say, dare you say, there is not evidence 



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 



185 



enough to induce belief? Have you examined it 
carefully, calmly, impartially ? Above all, have you 
sought the illuminating influences of the Spirit ? 
Light has come into the world. Are you willing 
still to be classed with those who love darkness rather 
than light ? Shall it be still said of you, shall it be 
said of you by him who wept over perishing sinners 
when the day of their visitation was passed, when 
the things that belonged to their peace were forever 
hidden from their eyes, shall it be said, " Ye will 
not come unto me that ye might have life % " 



186 SERMONS. 



IX. 

REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 

OP A TRUTH I PERCEIVE THAT GOD IS NO RESPECTER OP PERSONS. 

Acts x, 34. 

The occasion that called forth, this language is 
memorable in the annals of our race. Then first 
dawned upon the soul of the apostle the glorious 
truth that God in Christ Jesus had thrown down the 
separating wall between the Jew and the Gentile, 
and that the aristocracy of the Mosaic dispensation 
had given place to the republicanism of Christianity. 
In that short sentence is found the palladium of 
human rights, the charter of civil liberty. Its enun- 
ciation laid the foundation stone of republican insti- 
tutions. 

The Republicanism of Christianity ! Does the 
phrase sound strangely in your ear ? Am I told that 
Christianity has nothing to do with politics ? that the 
pulpit is no place for the discussion of such topics ? 
I have heard these objections frequently. They arise, 
if I mistake not, from a misapprehension of terms, a 
vagueness as to the specific idea conveyed by lan- 
guage in common use. If by politics you mean 
party strife, electioneering tumults, the rant and 
fustian of the demagogue, by which cunning and 
knavery seek to ride into office, Christianity has in- 
deed neither part nor lot in the matter. Her province 



KEPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 187 



is to be silent, or at most, to lift up the voice of re- 
monstrance and rebuke. So, too, if you understand 
by republicanism merely a name by which one party 
is designated in opposition to another, the sacred desk 
is indeed the last place for its inculcation. It is little 
less than sacrilege for a minister of Christ to lend it, 
officially, the sanction of his influence. I take an 
entirely different view of the subject. I would have 
you look upon it, to-day at least, in another light. 
Politics is a science. It has for its object the welfare 
of the state ; the peace, happiness, and prosperity of 
the community. It is a subject therefore in which 
every man is interested ; in which he has a right to 
be interested. Nay, more, I see not how a man, be 
he of the clergy or the laity, can claim to be a Chris- 
tian without feeling a deep interest in every thing 
pertaining to the welfare of his country. A good 
Christian and a bad citizen are antagonistic terms. 
They are characters that will not coalesce. Repub- 
licanism is a branch of political science. Considered 
as a system of government, its cardinal doctrine is 
the natural equality of the human race. It differs in 
many things from aristocracy, monarchy, and despot- 
ism ; but chiefly is this difference seen in the fact that 
it recognizes the people as the legitimate source of 
power, and looks upon the ruler not as the master, 
but as the servant of the public. 

Of pure republicanism, considered in this light, the 
foundation is laid in the sentiment expressed by the 
apostle in my text. " God is no respecter of persons." 
Why % Because all men are created equal. "Were it 
not so, the text would not be true ; or if true, it would 



188 



SERMONS. 



derogate from the integrity of Jehovah's character. 
There is a differeupe in the estimation of heaven be- 
tween the value of a man and a sparrow, simply be- 
cause there is avast natural inequality between them ; 
and if there were a real intrinsic difference between 
man and man, by the same rule, God ought to be a 
respecter of persons. 

But the question is, Wherein consists this equality 
of the human race ? Ever since the declaration went 
forth in the charter of American liberty that all men 
are created equal, it has met the sneers of the haughty 
aristocrat, and the ridicule of the minions of power. 
Of late too, O shame ! its truth has been gravely 
questioned by the descendants of those who declared 
it self-evident, and staked upon it their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honor. All men, say they, 
are not created equal. One is by birth free, noble, a 
king ; while another is born in vassalage, a serf, a 
slave. Let us look at this. Let us enter that palace. 
Is it not splendid ? See, there is wealth enough scat- 
tered in its decoration to supphy food for a million 
who are perishing with hunger ; but their cry does 
not penetrate these massive walls. Here every thing 
is luxurious and magnificent. Under that gorgeous 
canopy there sleeps a helpless babe, and they tell me 
he is born to be a monarch. That little hand, so like 
the hand of a beggar's infant born behind a hedge 
and cradled under the open sky that I cannot even 
with a microscope discern the difference, that hand 
is destined to wield a scepter ; that little brow was 
made to be encircled by a diadem. Indeed ! Who 
gave him a right to all these high prerogatives? 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 



Came there a voice from heaven at his birth, endow- 
ing him with this pre-eminence \ O no ; but the child's 
father was a king. And how came he in possession 
of regal dignity ? Why, his ancestors are of royal 
blood. Of royal blood ? Cry you mercy : I had 
thought that God had made of one blood all nations, 
and every individual of each nation. But his ances- 
tors have been of royal blood I know not how long. 
Ay, you know not how long % I will tell you. Trace 
up this ancestry, and you shall find that the first who 
seated himself upon the throne obtained that seat 
by violence and wrong. He waded through slaugh- 
ter, and by shedding the blood of his equals, his own 
blood became royal. That child is not created a 
king. He is a king only by the sufferance of the 
sovereign people ; and if they choose to have it so, it 
is not our place to quarrel with them, so long as they 
leave unimpeached the glorious and eternal verity, 
" God is no respecter of persons." 

It is strange, moreover, that even by those who 
contend for the descent of nobility and royalty through 
successive generations, such a patent is never claimed 
for wisdom, valor, or anything else deemed estimable 
among men. Is the child of a bold warrior necessa- 
rily brave ? Are the descendants of all statesmen by 
virtue of their birth wise legislators ? Do the sons of 
all philanthropists delight to relieve the distressed ? 
Have the offspring of the philosopher by nature a 
monopoly to measure the planets ? Do the children 
of the poet scream in hexameters and cry in heroics ? 

But all men are not created equal. Some are born 
slaves. Let us look at this. We have been to the 



190 



SERMONS. 



palace, let us go to the hovel. Let us enter that most 
wretched apology for a dwelling. Here are no brist- 
ling bayonets to keep ns out, and no liveried lackies 
obsequiously to bow us in. All is comfortless : the 
squalid wretchedness of abject misery. It is dark, 
too. The sun is kept out lest the cold wind might 
enter with him, for there, also, an infant lies in a 
slumber, gentle and sweet as that of our first parents 
in Eden's rosy bowers. All unconscious he of what 
awaits him in this weary world. There is a smile 
upon his cheek. Perchance in his dream he is hold- 
ing converse with an angel. Look upon him. See, 
God's image is stamped upon his brow with as fair an 
impression as that you just now gazed upon in the 
palace. But that child is born to be a slave. Why ? 
O his parents are in bondage. Ay! And who 
made them slaves ? Go back in their history, and 
tell me how the first of his ancestors became doomed 
to " fan a master while he sleeps, and tremble when 
he wakes." You will find that it was brought about 
precisely as in the case of the king, by violence and 
wrong. O, it is monstrous that man should thus, 
himself, mar the order of the Deity, and then coolly 
wipe his mouth and say, All men are not created 
equal : God is a respecter of persons. But do not 
wealth and worldly possessions make some difference ? 
Certainly they make some difference ; and so do cli- 
mate, parentage, and the ten thousand other acci- 
dents incident to humanity. He whose ancestors 
have dwelt for ages under the burning sun of the 
tropics would probably suffer by exchanging with 
the hardy inhabitant of the polar circle, just as the 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 191 



Kamschatkan might find unendurable the clear hot 
sky and blistering sands in which rejoices the denizen 
of the great Sahara. What then ? Shall the one 
despise the other, or claim a higher rank in the favor 
of the great Creator ? What a subject for unmingled 
ridicule would such presumption prove ; and scarcely 
less ludicrous is the arrogance that wealth exhibits 
when it looks down upon poverty, and with a super- 
cilious curling of the lip mutters, God is a respecter 
of persons. Are the children of the poor then on an 
equality with those of the rich % What a question. 
Let them change places, transpose them as they slum- 
ber in their cradles, and you yourself shall answer it. 
Or let disease visit their respective dwellings ; let a 
fever scorch or an ague chill, and if you can discern 
any difference, you will be inclined probably to give 
it in favor of the child of poverty. The fact is, 
wealth is a mere circumstance, the veriest accident 
in man's history ; obtained often without merit, and 
lost as often without a fault. In this world of per- 
^tual fluctuation the nabob may be a beggar to- 
morrow and the pauper be riding in his carriage. 

By the decree of heaven, there will always be in 
human society poor as well as rich. By the same de- 
cree they are mutually dependent, so that neither 
may say of the other, I have no need of thee. Labor 
is recompensed by wealth, and of no further use is 
money than to put its possessor within reach of the 
fruits of industry and toil. From each class have 
arisen individuals who were a blessing to their race. 
He must know little of the world's history who sup- 
poses that a majority of the brightest names upon her 



192 



SEKMONS. 



tablet belonged to the inheritors of large possessions. 
On the contrary, they shone forth from what purse- 
proud arrogance is pleased to designate as the lower 
order, the rabble, the swinish multitude. Strange 
phrases these in the lips of any man conscious of the 
common origin of our race. Despicable their very 
utterance by one professing to be a republican. Com- 
ing from a Christian, a blasphemous reproach upon 
Him who disdained not to be known as one of the 
poor, a houseless wanderer in a world of his own cre- 
ation. 

But there is still another light in which we may 
contemplate the subject before us. I allude to the 
destiny of man. By this I do not mean merely that 
all are alike mortal and traveling to the grave, that 
the hour is hastening when all outward distinctions 
shall vanish away, when wealth and rank and title 
shall mingle together with want and poverty and 
wretchedness, and fester in one undistinguishable 
mass of corruption and rottenness. I refer rather to 
the undying principle within, the soul, the spark 
ethereal, which Christianity tells me shall never be 
extinguished. On this effulgent truth the genius of 
republicanism takes her stand, and waves to the na- 
tions of the earth her untarnished banner with its 
glorious inscription : All men are created equal. 
Equal, if there were no other reason, because alike 
destined for immortality, and alike capable, through 
God's grace, of endless progression in knowledge, 
virtue, and happiness. 

For the blindness of the Jews in not seeing this 
truth, and for the slowness of the apostles to admit it 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 1&3 

even after its annunciation by Jesus Christ, a reason 
may be found in the peculiarity of their early history. 
They had been for ages, of all nations of the earth, 
God's chosen people. To them pertained the cove- 
nant, and the law, and the promises. They dwelt in 
light, while all around was darkness. " In Judah 
was God known ; his name was great in Israel." It 
was natural, therefore, that they should think it 
would be always thus, and that those who had no part 
in their inheritance were to be forever accursed of 
God. Nearly two thousand years have elapsed since 
the dawning of a new era, since the hour when, by 
the miraculous interposition of heaven, even a Jew 
was constrained to declare, Of a truth I perceive that 
God is no respecter of persons. Where, now, shall 
we seek an apology for that spirit of exclusiveness in 
the present age, which in the political world would 
build up an impassable barrier between the multitude 
and a favored few? How, without rending the man- 
tle of charity, shall we stretch it wide enough to 
cover up that Pharisaic leaven which styles itself the 
Church, which assumes to monopolize the favor of 
heaven, and coolly consigns all who differ from them 
to dark damnation, or turns them over to what they 
style in solemn mockery " the uncovenanted mercies 
of God?" 

The natural equality of the human race being es- 
tablished, it follows necessarily and unavoidably that 
the great Creator, being no respecter of persons, has 
endowed all men with certain inalienable rights. 
Thus teacheth the republicanism of Christianity, and 

thus the Declaration of American Independence. 

13 



194 



SERMONS. 



Equal rights ! What do we mean by the phrase ? 
Not that any man has a right to do wrong. No man 
has a right to injure me ; I have no right to injure 
him. While in his person, his family, his property, 
he has a right to entire security, he is at the same 
time and by the same rule restrained from infring- 
ing upon the rights of others. It is a perfect recipro- 
city. No man may set his foot upon your neck. Tou 
have no right to trample upon him. With govern- 
ments the case is precisely the same as it is with indi- 
viduals. Whether the supreme power be in the 
hands of one or many, an infringement upon the 
natural rights of the poorest citizen is an oppression 
repugnant alike to the spirit of Christianity and to 
pure republicanism. To the government of his choice, 
while it keeps within the limits ofthe Constitution, 
the citizen owes respect, affection, obedience. It is 
the duty of the government, on the other hand, to 
afford him protection in his honest efforts to obtain a 
livelihood, security in the possession of his property, 
and freedom in the exercise of every natural right. 

With sufficient accuracy for our present purpose, 
the inalienable rights of man may be comprised under 
the three divisions, thought, speech, action. In each 
of these respects, with the restrictions before adverted 
to, every man has a right to perfect liberty. He has 
this right, not because any earthly government has 
given it to him, and none the less because any human 
power attempts by force to deprive him of it. The 
right is his by virtue of his manhood. It stands back 
of all government. It descended from his Maker : 
from that God who is no respecter of persons. 



EEPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 195 



I begin with liberty of thought, not only because 
it is the most important, but because against it has 
been waged the most deadly warfare. The rack, the 
dungeon, the blazing fagot, have been put in requisi- 
tion to compel men to think in accordance with the 
dictates of arbitrary power. To restrain free thought 
and to punish its exercise, kings have inflicted bodily 
torture, and priests have in addition threatened tor- 
ments beyond the grave. No thanks to them that 
they could do no more than threaten. Nor are these 
facts merely historical, or as some might be led to 
suppose, things that have been, but are no longer. 
The spirit by which they were brought about still 
lives ; restrained in some countries, it is true, but still 
alive and still venomous. What means, for instance, 
the early instilled maxim of every monarchical gov- 
ernment, " The king can do no wrong ? " Does it 
mean that he who happens to wear the crown is so 
invested with the prime attribute of Jehovah as to 
be absolutely perfect ? No. The most devoted wor- 
shiper of royalty will not venture so bold an inter- 
pretation. Does it mean, then, that the monarch is a 
mere puppet, dancing only at the pleasure of those 
who pull the wires ? No. That would be making 
majesty too contemptible. What does it mean, then ? 
Why, it means you must not tliii%k the king does 
wrong. That is a very ingenious device, intended 
doubtless for the same object, which inscribes upon 
the coin of the realm, around the bust of the reign- 
ing monarch, Rex Dei gratia: in plain English, 
king by the grace of God. Thus, the boldest usurper 
and the bloodiest tyrant whom heaven ever permitted 



196 



SERMONS. 



to scourge our race was emperor by the grace of 
God until Wellington routed his legions and drove 
him into exile. Thus, too, at the present day, the 
good people of the various kingdoms and empires of 
the globe are reminded by every coin passing through 
their hands, that their sovereign, whatever be his 
private or public character, was sent to them by the 
special favor of the Almighty ; and if the coin speaks 
truth, why they ought not think otherwise. The 
same spirit stands frowningly at the very portico of 
what is called the republic of letters, and demands, as 
the price of admission within the classic walls of the 
proudest universities of Europe, the prostration of 
free thought, or a hypocritical subscription to arti- 
cles which are not to all men, to say the least, self- 
evident. 

But we need not confine ourselves to the old world 
for illustrations. Specimens of attempted aggressions 
upon freedom of thought are to be found sufficiently 
numerous, even among ourselves, to justify the dec- 
laration that "the price of liberty is eternal vigi- 
lance." Who has not seen and laughed at the arro- 
gance of a titled dignitary of the Romish Church, as 
exhibited in his published speech on the eve of the 
last election in our neighboring city ? Laying aside 
his sacerdotal vestments, and taking his stand as the 
leader of a political party, he harangued the meeting 
with, as the papers say, his accustomed eloquence. 
After stating with great clearness the object at which 
he aimed, and presenting the names of those whom 
he deemed worthy of office, " There is to be no dis- 
cussion," said his reverence, " on the merits of these 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 197 

candidates." In other words, I have done all the 
thinking that is necessary ; it is for yon to have no 
opinion, bnt simply to vote. And this langnage is 
addressed to onr adopted citizens; to the co-relig- 
ionists of Cecil, and Taney, and Carroll of Carroll- 
ton ! It remains to be seen how many of them will 
submit to this dictation, and tamely give up into the 
hands of an ambitious ecclesiastic those rights for 
which their fathers and our fathers mingled their 
blood upon the soil of America. 

The publicity given through the daily press, and by 
means of circulars, to a course of sectarian lectures 
in our own immediate neighborhood, may serve as 
an apology for noticing here what might otherwise 
be deemed beneath notice. A copy of this circular 
has been put into my hands. Among other subjects 
proposed for discussion, one that especially took my 
fancy and affected very sensibly my risible muscles 
is entitled, " The unreasonableness of dissent, espe- 
cially as illustrated by the case of the Puritans and 
Methodists." The ease of the Puritans and Method- 
ists ! What kind of a case can that be ? As to the 
Methodists, they are used to these things, and' I thank 
God, in a fair field, quite able to defend themselves. 
But the Puritans, the lion-hearted Puritans, they who 
braved the storm and the tempest, the broad ocean 
and the savage wilderness, in defense of man's in- 
alienable rights, who is he that will revile their ashes 
by calling their conduct unreasonable \ Has he read 
their history? Did he ever hear of the good ship 
Mayflower, of the sacred rock of Plymouth, and can 
he do this thing on this free soil and in this free air ? 



198 



SERMONS. 



The unreasonableness of dissent ! What is that ? 
What is dissent ? The exercise of free thought, the 
presumption of differing in opinion from those who 
would lord it over God's heritage, and who lack the 
power, but not the will, to enforce their assumptions 
by pains and penalties. Alas, poor prelacy ! A 
rickety bantling when it landed upon our shores, it 
will not flourish here. The air of a republic is too 
bracing. Peace to its ashes. 

Liberty of speech is another of man's inherent 
rights, and perfectly in accordance with the repub- 
licanism of Christianity does the Constitution of our 
country prohibit congress from abridging freedom of 
speech and of the press. The Constitution, observe, 
does not pretend to give this right ; it merely recog- 
nizes its existence and guarantees its exercise. It is 
the gift of God to the human race, and he being 
no respecter of persons, has conferred it equally 
upon all his children. It is a libel upon his character 
to suppose that if any man has this right, any 
other man is by his will to be deprived of it. With- 
out it, indeed, liberty of thought is comparatively 
a small matter. The veriest despot on earth need 
fear nothing from unuttered thought. 'Tis only 
when thought is embodied that it makes the tyrant 
tremble. 

But how if this liberty is used for the dissemina- 
tion of what you deem error ? Have you the right, 
has any man, or any body of men, the right to man- 
ufacture gags or forge padlocks to check its utter- 
ance ? No, indeed. If your fellow-man attempt to 
propagate error, let your truth grapple with his false- - 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 

hood. Immeasurably are the odds in your favor. 
The God of heaven is always on the side of truth. 
Expose his sophistry. Show the absurdity of his 
error, for error in contrast with truth is always ab- 
surd, and there is nothing more ridiculous than false- 
hood stripped of its disguise and exhibited in its 
native, hideous deformity. But if you cannot do this, 
if you distrust your own powers, you have at least 
one remedy ; you need not listen. The advocate of 
error has no more control over your ears than you. 
have over his tongue. It will be well, however, in 
the first place, to be thoroughly assured that what 
you thus shun is error. It is related of a certain 
pseudo-philosopher that he refused to look through 
the telescope of Galileo lest by so doing his faith 
should be shaken in the Aristotelian system of astron- 
omy. He certainly gained nothing and evinced very 
little wisdom by shutting his eyes when truth might 
have been obtained so easily ; and very like him is 
the man who fears free discussion on any topic. That 
very fear betrays a consciousness of weakness; and 
whoever seeks by civil or ecclesiastical power to re- 
strain free speech, at the same time renders his own 
cause suspicious, and aims a deadly blow at his own 
rights. It is perfectly natural to suspect, nay, it is 
impossible not to suspect, that cause or that professed 
truth which will not stand the full blaze of free 
discussion ; and he who would restrain his neighbor 
forcibly from his inalienable right of free speech, 
should bear in mind that that neighbor has just as 
good a right to restrain him. God is no respecter of 
persons, and 



200 



SERMONS. 



" Even-handed justice 
Shall commend th' ingredients of the poisoned chalice 
To his own lips." 

The third in the list of human rights is liberty of 
action. Because God is no respecter of persons, 
therefore no man has a right to interfere with another 
in his pursuit of happiness, so long as he trenches not 
upon the equal rights of his fellows. If no man has 
this right, no body of men can have it. If in either 
case such a claim is set up, it is a claim founded upon 
usurpation, and its exercise, let it be disguised as it 
may, is tyranny. All laws therefore which tend to 
embarrass man in his legitimate pursuits, to restrain 
him in the free exercise of the powers God has 
given him, are alike antirepublican and antichristian. 
But are not such laws to be respected while they re- 
main upon the statute book ? Certainly they are ; 
but where there is liberty of thought and liberty of 
speech, such laws cannot long exist. There is a rem- 
edy in a republic for all oppressive acts. Public 
opinion, where men have and exercise the right to 
think and to speak, defines with sufficient accuracy 
the limits of the legislator, erects a barrier over which 
he may not leap, aud tells him with a voice potential 
as the power by which he holds his office, " Thus far 
shalt thou come, but no further ; and here shalt thy 
proud waves be stayed." 

Human rights are thus seen to be mutually depend- 
ent. Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of 
thought; and where there is not liberty of speech 
there will not long be liberty of action. Just in pro- 
portion as man is deprived of these rights, he is 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 201 



divested of responsibility. Take them all away and 
he becomes a mere machine, incapable of being either 
a good citizen or a good Christian. Indeed, nobody 
supposes that under such circumstances he can be 
what we call a good citizen. That is a word not 
found in the vocabulary of tyrants. It is enough if 
he be a passive tool, wearing patiently his yoke and 
submitting quietly to the good pleasure of his liege. 
But it is supposed that, nevertheless, he may make a 
very good Christian, and offer unto the Great Su- 
preme acceptable homage and adoration. The be- 
nighted and degraded savage, it is said, goes to his 
priest and obtains from him, for a suitable remunera- 
tion, a written prayer. This the poor fellow takes, 
and with all gravity fastens to a windmill. He sup- 
poses himself very devout, for while the wind blows 
he has the benefit of incessant adoration. We smile 
at his absurdity ; and yet it would be difficult to show 
wherein it is greater than the absurdity of compelling 
men, by law, to bow the knee in a prescribed form, or 
of forcing upon them the acknowledgment of a creed 
to which their consciences do not respond. How slow 
is the world in learning that God looks at the heart, 
and that the soul must be unfettered ere it can offer 
acceptable worship, or soar upward to that high em- 
pyrean where only it may hold communion with its 
Maker. 

The star of Bethlehem vails in thick clouds her ra- 
diant luster when the arm of the civil power attempts 
to drag worshipers to the altar of her God ; and the 
mild dove of Christianity wings away affrighted at 
the wretched mockery of compelled adoration. 



202 



SERMONS. 



If it be true, then, that where there is no liberty 
there is no responsibility, equally true is it on the 
other hand that just in proportion to his enjoyment 
of his natural rights is man's responsibility to his 
fellow-men, his country, and his God. If he have 
perfect freedom of conscience, let him take heed that 
he listen to and obey its dictates. Let him not make 
his right to worship as he pleases a reason for not 
worshiping at all. . If he be permitted freely to follow 
the bent of his own inclination in his pursuit of the 
good things of this life, let him never forget that his 
meanest neighbor has the same right, and that to re- 
spect and defend the rights of his fellow-men is the 
surest method of maintaining the integrity of his 
own. If liberty of speech be guaranteed to him while 
he is strenuous to defend its exercise for himself, let 
him show equal anxiety that his brethren of the human 
race are put in possession of and enjoy the same bless- 
ing ; let him stand up for the right, let him open his 
mouth for the dumb ; as a republican without fear, 
as a Christian with unfaltering confidence in God. 
Let not republicanism be a mere theory, nor Chris- 
tianity a mere profession ; the former is contemptible, 
the latter an abomination. 

In a word, let the sentiment of the apostle in my 
text pervade your life, conversation, and conduct ; 
let it go forth from the rivers unto the ends of the 
earth, God is no respecter of persons. Let the des- 
pot on his blood-cemented throne hear it. Let the 
oppressor of his fellow-man hear it. Its echo may 
startle him from his dreamy slumber, and perchance 
induce him to make reparation ere he and his victim 



REPUBLICANISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 203 



shall stand upon one level before the bar of an aveng- 
ing judge. Let the advocate of tyranny, and he who 
will apologize for oppression, hear in that short sen- 
tence the ntter hopelessness of their task, and refrain, 
lest they be found fighting against Jehovah. God is 
no respecter of persons. Let the sound go forth until 
the abused and the downtrodden of every clime shall 
hear it ; until all, of every kindred and tongue and 
people, shall exult in the enjoyment of that precious 
legacy of their Redeemer and their God. 



204 



SEBMONS. 



X. 

THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and 

THE BOOKS WERE OPENED : . . . AND THE DEAD WERE JUDGED OUT 
OF THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS, ACCORDING 
TO THEIR WORKS. — Rev. XX, 12. 

"Whether the Revelations of St. John were writ- 
ten by the disciple whom Jesus loved, or by another 
of the same name, is a point which has not been set- 
tled in the Christian Church. There are arguments 
on both sides of the question. The style of the apoc- 
alypse is very different from that of John's gospel 
and epistles. Simplicity and tenderness are the 
characteristics of the latter ; while the former is un- 
equaled for the sublimity of its conceptions and its 
majestic grandeur. 

For ourselves we love, in idea, to identify the dis- 
ciple who leaned on the bosom of the incarnate Sav- 
iour with him who " wept much, because no man 
was found worthy to open and to read the book ; 
neither to look thereon." There seems to us a moral 
fitrfess in the selection of the meek and modest John 
for the organ of a revelation, the most sublime and 
momentous : " He that humbleth himself shall be 
exalted." 

In the preceding chapters we have the dark and 
mysterious events of futurity unfolded ; symbolical 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



205 



representations of which were shown to the writer by 
Him whose " voice was as it were of a trumpet talk- 
ing with me ; which said, Come up hither, and I will 
show thee things which must be hereafter." 

It is far from being an objection to, indeed it is an 
argument in favor of, the divinity of the Kevelation, 
that finite minds have differed greatly in their inter- 
pretation of the mysterious vision which J ohn saw. 
The critical sagacity that has been evoked ; the nu- 
merical calculations that have been made ; the hypo- 
theses, more or less plausible, in which ingenious men 
have indulged with reference to the Eevelation, have 
been, to say the least, labor lost. Time alone, as it 
rolls onward, can unravel its mysteries ; and as the 
events therein predicted are developed, each in suc- 
cession will be an attestation of its authenticity and 
inspiration till time itself shall be no longer. Man 
not knowing the events alluded to and foretold, can 
neither hasten nor retard them. " It is not for you 
to know the times or the seasons which the Father 
hath put in his own power." 

After enumerating and dwelling upon previous 
paramount occurrences and events, continuing down 
to the final scene of time's great drama, " I saw," 
says the revelator, u the dead, small and great, stand 
before God ; and the books were opened : . . . and 
the dead were judged out of those things which were 
written in the books." 

It is generally conceded (and it would be extremely 
difficult to find another interpretation having the ap- 
pearance of plausibility) that the passage before us 
refers to the day of final retribution, and that the 



206 



SERMONS. 



purpose for which the dead stand before God is the 
apportionment of their endless destiny. We assume, 
therefore, that for this purpose the books are opened ; 
and the dead are judged out of the things written in 
the books. 

The subject ot inquiry we have proposed to our- 
selves is, What is to be understood by the books 

WHICH WERE (WILL BE) OPENED ; AND THE THINGS 

WRITTEN therein which will form the criterion 

OF JUDGMENT ? 

That these expressions are not to be understood 
literally may be argued from the general tenor of the 
whole Rev elation, the language of which is figurative 
throughout. 

The idea of a recording angel, whose peculiar prov- 
ince it may be to enter the thoughts, words, and 
actions of mankind in books prepared for that pur- 
pose, is fanciful. It were an unpleasant task for a, 
holy being, and beyond the ability of a finite crea- 
ture. God alone can read the thoughts of the heart. 

That there is, however, a perfectly correct register 
preparing for that day, and what that register is, will 
be seen in the evolution of the arguments which 
follow. 

1. Personal identity lies at the foundation of a 
future judgment. The individuals who are to be 
judged, and upon whom sentence of condemnation 
or approval is to be pronounced, must be identical 
with those whose accounts are written in the books. 
The dead who are to be judged must be identified 
with the living whose acts are recorded ; and this, 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



207 



no matter what or how great the changes and trans- 
formations through which they may have passed in 
the interim, between the date of the record and the 
opening of the books. Nor does it matter how long 
that interim may have been ; one day, or a myriad of 
ages. I do not ask this as a postulate preparatory to 
the development of the argument ; nor does the posi- 
tion itself need arguments to sustain it. With those 
who think, it will have, as well as several that follow, 
the force and intuition of an axiom. 

2. Personal identity implies an individual knowl- 
edge of that identity. I mean with reference to the 
identity essential for a future judgment. It is possi- 
ble to conceive an individual deprived of this knowl- 
edge : to imagine man in a state in which he shall be 
unable to identify himself with what he was and has 
been. But the moment we do this we divest him of 
accountability. He is no longer a rational creature, 
a moral agent, a man ; for these terms, if not synony- 
mous, are essentially confluent, and either one implies 

l*e other two. Such a creature would not be con- 
sidered amenable to an earthly tribunal, much less 
can we believe it consonant with the attributes of Je- 
hovah that an individual unconscious of his own 
personal identity is a proper subject to stand before 
his bar. 

3. Every man is conscious of his own identity. 
There mav be no direct argument bv which to estab- 
lish this truth, nor is any necessary. I am conscious 
of my own, you of yours ; nor has either of us ever 
met with an individual in his senses who doubted the 
fact, however much philosophers may dispute the 



SERMOKS. 



question in what does that identity consist Transi- 
tion from infancy to youth, manhood, old age, does 
not affect it. Removal from one region to another ; 
alteration in outward circumstances, as a change from 
competence to poverty, or the reverse ; prosperity, 
adversity, health, sickness, none of these affect it. 

4. ]STor does it depend on anything external. The 
loss of a limb, of all the limbs, of any part of the 
body, so long as the vital spark is not extinguished, 
has no effect in impairing this identity and man's 
consciousness of it. The particles of matter of which 
the body is composed are constantly changing. The 
body, after the lapse of a few years, is, in fact, another 
body, so far as relates to its component parts ; but 
the man's identity is not impaired and cannot be 
questioned. He whose hair is now silvered by age, 
hearing not the sounds of gladness that Sire around 
him, tottering upon his crutch, led by the hand of 
another because " those that look out of the window 
be darkened," is identically the same individual who 
was once dandled upon the mother's knee, helpless 
in unconscious infancy. 

5. Nor is it an identity of intellectual power. The 
powers of the mind, like those of the body, are sus- 
ceptible of increase and diminution. They are per- 
petually expanding and contracting around us. The 
mind that is now busied in tracing the revolutions of 
the planets, or in unfolding to the admiring gaze of 
his fellows the mysteries of nature ; that is now list- 
ening delighted to the music of the spheres, or amus- 
ing itself with the arcana of the most abstruse sciences, 
was, and but a little while since, perplexed in the ex- 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



209 



treme with the strange conformation of those symbols 
of science, the letters of the alphabet, " pleased with 
a rattle, tickled with a straw." 

So, again, on the other hand, it is no argument 
against this identity, and man's consciousness of it, 
to point us to the individual who from any cause is 
now unable to trace the steps by which he once rea- 
soned, or to comprehend the arguments of his own 
philosophy. Though the days have come in which 
he has no pleasure in them ; when all his associates 
around him may say, and himself may feel, Quanto 
mutatus db Mo ! yet has not that change at all affected 
his personal identity, or induced him to question it 
for a moment. 

6. The knowledge of this identity cannot be de- 
stroyed or obliterated. We have seen that the things 
of time and sense are incompetent to produce this 
effect. There is no ground to suppose, no argument 
to justify the conclusion, that the realities of another 
world have any tendency to accomplish it. "Will 
death destroy it ! Independent of every returning 
day's experience, we should have as much reason to 
suppose that its destruction would be effected by a 
night's slumber as by the sleep of death. 

The rich man of whom the Saviour tells us, when 
he lifted up his eyes in torment, was identical with 
him who once fared sumptuously, and clothed him- 
self in purple and fine linen. He was still brother to 
the five he had left at his father's house. He is still 
the same, and equally well assured of his identity, 
now that centuries have elapsed since first his una- 
vailing cry went up to heaven. 



210 SERMONS. 

Admit for a moment the possibility of destroying 
or obliterating this consciousness of personal identity. 
Suppose the effect produced. Does it not follow that 
futurity can neither reward nor punish ? Nay, with 
reference to man, futurity is not ; man is annihilated. 

7. The question, How is man assured of his own 
identity \ is a most interesting one. Locke's assertion, 
" Consciousness makes personal identity," amounts to 
nothing. We might with equal truth, and with as 
much philosophical acumen, transpose the sentence 
and say, personal identity makes consciousness. The 
question still recurs, How do I acquire and retain a 
consciousness of my own identity ; a consciousness, 
as we have seen, that will abide with me forever ? 
Do I obtain it by any process of reasoning ? Evi- 
dently not. If by any mode of argument I was en- 
abled yesterday to satisfy myself of my identity, it 
would require the same process to-day, and every 
succeeding day and hour of my existence. I am not 
conscious of any such process. Nay, I positively 
know that none such takes place. Further, there are 
multitudes of my fellow-men, who from want of in- 
tellectual culture are incapable of such metaphysical 
subtleties ; and they, I have every reason to believe, 
are as well assured of their own identity as the proud- 
est philosopher. 

There results, then, that the faculty by which man 
has a knowledge of his identity must be universal ; 
that is, possessed by all men ; and that it must be 
indestructible. 

8. That faculty is memory. I am aware that some 
philosophers, Abercrombie for instance, and Locke 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



211 



before him, scruple to call memory a distinct faculty 
of the mind. They prefer to say, the mind remem- 
bers. It seems, however, a needless refinement. The 
word memory stands for some idea, or it does not. 
If the latter, there is no use for the word, and it 
means nothing. The phrase, "storehouse of the 
mind," frequently used by the last-named writer, is 
but a periphrasis, and the use of it by so concise and 
close a reasoner shows the indispensable necessity of 
at least conceiving the memory to be a distinct 
faculty. 

That all men are endowed with memory, or, if it 
suit better, and which I conceive a tantamount ex- 
pression, that all have the faculty of remembering, 
will not, I presume, be questioned. 

That we are correct in attributing man's conscious- 
ness of identity to this faculty may be seen if we 
consider, (1.) The utter impossibility of realizing this 
identity back of the date to which memory extends. 
There was a time in every man's existence when this 
faculty first began to be developed; beyond that, 
knowledge of personal identity does not extend. 
(2.) And again, the impossibility of identifying our- 
selves with ourselves in some past period of our exist- 
ence of which we are unable to recall the occurrences 
or events ; for example, I may be assured by persons 
whose veracity I have no reason to question and can- 
not doubt, that at such a time, in infancy or child- 
hood suppose, I performed certain acts. If I am 
unable, by the aid of memory, to recall the recollec- 
tion of those events, I cannot be conscious that I am 
identical with the person who did thus and so. But 



212 



SERMONS. 



let some train of thought be awakened which brings 
the events vividly before me ; let memory by any 
means be aroused, and I am at once conscious that I 
am the identical individual who was engaged in those 
transactions. 

9. Memory is indestructible. This, if the truth of 
the preceding remark be admitted, is evident, at least 
so far as that the remembrance of some things, the 
things on which personal identity depends, must be 
coexistent with man himself. It will be objected, 
perhaps, that although the truth of our proposition, 
thus far understood, is incontrovertible, yet it will 
not follow that memory itself is indestructible, as 
that would imply that forgetfulness is impossible, 
and carrying out the idea would result in establishing 
the position that the memory is equally capable of 
retaining one thing as another ; and if so, there is no 
reason why one solitary event that has ever occurred 
in any individual's history, word spoken, thought 
conceived, or combination of thought in its wildest 
vagaries, should ever he absolutely and entirely for- 
gotten. 

To which we reply, the inference is correct. It 
becomes us to meet the objections that may be urged 
against it, prior to adducing the arguments in its 
favor. 

(1.) The first objection I shall notice is drawn 
from experience. There are many things, says the 
objector, which I once knew that I have now forgot- 
ten. Indeed, he continues, my memory is treacher- 
ous in the extreme ; I cannot trust it with matters of 
the most trivial import. This objection appears 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



213 



plausible ; but it will be seen, I think, on reflection 
that it arises from the confounding of two things in 
themselves totally distinct ; to wit, recollection and 
memory. The one is a faculty of the mind ; the 
other, the result of the exercise of that faculty. The 
former may be compared to a draft upon the latter, 
which, though it be sometimes dishonored, yet is not, 
to carry out the metaphor, for want of funds, but 
for some other reason. This is evidenced by the fact, 
that no man ever attempts to recollect or recall any 
event which never had a place in his memory. 

Besides, the objection itself, admitted in its full force, 
merely proves that the memory may, for a time, be in- 
active ; in a state of quiescence. We are free to admit, 
memory may sleep ; our position is, it never dies. 

(2.) But some things are remembered with more 
facility than others ; which would not be the case, 
continues the objector, were the inference under con- 
sideration correct. To which the answer is very sim- 
ple. Some things, for instance, are more agreeable 
to the palate than others ; upon verdant lawns and fer- 
tile valleys the eye rests with more pleasure than 
upon arid rocks and sterile plains. All things are 
not equally agreeable to my palate, nor do I view 
with the same delight all objects. But this is cer- 
tainly no argument against the delicacy of my taste 
or the correctness of my vision. It is, indeed, a di- 
rect argument to the contrary ; seeing that if this 
were the case it would argue, if not the absence, at 
least the imperfection of those faculties. Indeed, 
the very enunciation of the above objection defeats 
the object for which it is brought ; for to say that one 



214: 



SEKMONS. 



thing is done more readily, or with more ease, than 
another, what is it but to say that the thing which is 
done with the least ease, may nevertheless be done ? 

(3.) Very like this and similar is the answer to the 
objection drawn from the diversity of mankind with 
reference to the power of recollection. It is, indeed, 
most evident that all men have not this faculty in the 
same degree. It is said of Pascal that "he forgot 
nothing of what he had done, read, or thought in any 
part of his rational age." Here, on the other hand, 
is a man who has forgotten the commencement of the 
essay he is now finishing ; or, if you please, the chap- 
ter of the Bible he selected and read at his family 
devotion this morning. But in either of these last 
supposed instances, or indeed in any others of similar 
import, we see no kind of evidence that any thing 
has been absolutely forgotten, but a remarkable 
illustration of that endless diversity that obtains 
throughout the creation of mind as well as matter. 
We know that no two individuals are precisely simi- 
lar in their corporeal formation ; we have never seen 
two eyes exactly alike, or two hands, or two ears, 
either in their peculiar conformation, or in their 
faculty of conveying emotions, pleasing or otherwise, 
to the mind. And it is as little to be wondered at, 
it is just what we might expect, that similar diversi- 
ties should be found in the faculties of the soul. 

Again : The question may be retorted upon the ob- 
jector, whether in the instance of an individual (Pas- 
cal, as above alluded to, for instance) who has great 
readiness in recollecting past events, scenes, occur- 
rences, he is enabled to do it by the exercise of mem- 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



215 



ory, or in some other way ? If the latter, the objec- 
tion is irrelevant ; and if the former, we may surely 
adduce him as evidence of the truth of our position. 
Why similar examples are not more numerous it con- 
cerns us not to answer any more than to account for 
the infinite diversity in man's corporeal faculties, or 
other mental powers. In other words, having estab- 
lished the position that all men have, and will always 
have, memory sufficient to assure them of their own 
identity in every period of their existence, we are no 
more obliged to say why one has the ability of calling 
that faculty into use more readily than another, than 
we are to account for the greater acuteness of one 
man's eyesight, hearing, or any other bodily sense. 

(4.) To say it were unnecessary that memory should 
be thus burdened with all the scenes of past exist- 
ence, and draw thence an argument in opposition to 
our theory, is manifestly to beg the whole question. 
Who shall say what is and what is not necessary ? 
And how, when taking into consideration the whole 
of man's existence, and not merely the brief period of 
his sojourn on earth, will the objector be able to prove 
that it is necessary anything should be forgotten, or 
even that it is not necessary that every thing should 
be vividly remembered % The burden of proof mani- 
festly rests upon the objector, before any argument 
can be drawn from the necessity of the case. 

(5.) " But we have evidence that the memory de- 
cays with the infirmities of old age ; that it becomes 
weak, feeble, and inefficient." True ; and so do sight 
and hearing ; imagination, judgment, nay, reason it- 
self , seems flickering in the socket ; but who argues 

# 



216 



SERMONS. 



thence that it is going out or on the point of being 
extinguished forever? The argument, if it be al- 
lowed in the one case, must be equally valid in the 
other ; and the result evidently would be that death 
is annihilation. 

And again, the destruction of memory involves 
the destruction of all the other faculties of the soul. 
Without memory we know in this world, at least, 
men cannot compare, judge, reason ; and however 
much the faculties of the mind may be enlarged and 
strengthened in a future state of existence, we have 
no authority for supposing that it will ever receive 
any new faculties. 

(6.) But if memory be indestructible, how is it 
that the Deity is said to forget? (Jer. xxiii, 39; 
Hos. iv, 6.) And how shall we reconcile this propo- 
sition with his oft-repeated declarations concerning 
the sins of the penitent, " I will remember them no 
more ? " (Jer. xxxi, 34 ; Heb. viii, 12, etc.) 

To this objection, I apprehend, a satisfactory an- 
swer is found in the fact that in the passages first 
alluded to — the only ones, I believe, in the Bible 
where the Almighty is said to forget — the word is 
evidently not designed to be understood in its literal 
sense, but means simply neglect, or some word equiv- 
alent thereto. And with reference to the latter quo- 
tations I may say in the language of another,* " The 
divine Being's 'not remembering** is only a strong 
expression for his never recalling, as grounds of judi- 
cial charge, the sins which he has pardoned." And 
again : " To the Infinite Mind there is present the 
• Wardlaw on the Extent of the Atonement. 



THE JUDGMENT BEGTSTER. 



217 



history of every individual of all the millions of the 
world's population for nearly six thousand years — a 
history comprehending, in each case, all that has been 
thought, or felt, or said, or done by him every moment 
of his life — and that, too, in perfect order and circum- 
stantial accuracy, without the slightest intermixture 
or confusion." 

This view of the case is absolutely essential to the 
perfections of the Divine Being. It is impossible, 
with reverence be it spoken, it is impossible that, in 
the strict sense of the word, any thing should be for- 
gotten by the Almighty, or that he should be unable 
at any moment to recall the events of any individual's 
life at any given hour of his existence, or the recur- 
rences, with all their minutiae, in any part of his vast 
creation during the whole of a past eternity. 

(7.) Most true, continues the objector; and it is 
true, because predicated of the perfections of Jehovah. 
But what is man ? Is he perfect ? or is his a perfect 
memory ? 

I answer : Scripture and our own experience unite 
in assuring us that man in his present condition is 
far from being in the state in which God created him. 
He made man upright ; he has lamentably fallen. 
But it is not clear that the faculties of his mind, the 
ability to reason, to compare, to reflect, to judge be- 
tween good and evil, however much warped by the 
propensities of a wicked heart, or biased to evil by 
the suggestions of his subtle and ever watchful ene- 
my, have been in any way lessened by the fall. The 
accusation against him does not lie in this direction 
at all. It is the heart that is deceitful, the will that is 



218 



SERMONS. 



perverse, the feelings that are depraved. The charge 
is not that he is unable, but that he does not ; that he 
is unwilling to consider, reflect, reason. v This is beau- 
tifully illustrated by that endearing invitation of the 
great Creator to his fallen creature, " Come, and let 
us reason together." So, throughout the Scriptures, 
it is nowhere intimated that on account of the fall, 
or for any other cause, man is unable to comprehend 
his relation to God and his fellows ; or to understand 
all that it is essential for him to know ; or even from 
correct principles to reason correctly. Indeed, if I 
mistake not, the direct contrary is assumed by the 
Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, wherein 
he declares of certain individuals that "they are 
without excuse f and by the Saviour himself, when 
he directs the Jews to search the Scriptures, and 
charges upon them that they would not come unto 
him that they might have life. (Rom. i, 19, 20 ; John 
v, 39, 40.) 

And this reasoning applies equally to the memory 
as to any of the other mental faculties. True, since 
his fall, man has sought oi^t many inventions ; and 
though from the multiplicity of events perpetually 
occurring around him, and the exhaustless fountain 
of thought that is springing up within him, he be un- 
able (probably more unable than he would have been 
had he not fallen) to recall the occurrences of his own 
history at any moment, yet is this no argument that 
the memory of them has perished, or that anything 
has been erased from its tablet. 

Thus much for the objections. Let us now adduce 
a few arguments which go to establish the truth of 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 219 

the doctrine, that forgetfulness of any event in which 
the individual has been a participant is impossible. 
Of course it will be perceived from what has been 
already said, that by this expression I would be un- 
derstood to mean forgetfulness absolute and entire. 

1. We have no assurance in our own history that 
we have forgotten any thing. On the contrary, who 
has not, from an apparently casual association of ideas, 
a hint, a catch-word, had vividly brought before him 
in all their particularity events the recollection of 
which had seemed perished forever ? and this, too, 
with a distinctness as if they had been but of yester- 
day? 

The youth just bursting into manhood, panting 
after distinction, wealth, fame, leaves the home of his 
fathers. He wanders into distant parts, forms new 
connections, is surrounded by new associates. By 
degrees, the recollection of his home and the scenes 
of his childhood grow faint. His youthful sports, 
and cares, and joys, and hopes, and thoughts are no 
longer present with him. His memory is busied with 
other matters. On returning, after the lapse of it 
may be half a century, the sight of a particular tree, 
house, stream, brightens impressions which had been 
made on the memory, and which seemed to have been 
blotted out to make room for others. The recurrence 
of them, however, proves that this has not been the 
case ; that the imprint had been indelible. The view 
of these scenes of his childhood had only caused the 
impression then made to stand forth with prominence 
before the mind's eye. Similar recurrences are fre- 
quent in the history of every individual. " I thought 



220 



SEEMONS. 



I had forgotten it " I do not now recollect," are com- 
mon expressions with reference to any of the scenes 
of past existence. No man, in view of his endless 
life, can say, I know I have forgotten ; I shall never 
recollect. 

2. Again : Having seen clearly that memory is es- 
sential to man's identity, and that a knowledge of 
this identity is essential to his future existence, the 
impossibility of absolute forgetfulness of any event 
may be thus argued : If it be possible for me to for- 
get one thing, I may another. And if one, why not 
all, everything; and my identity, or at least my 
knowledge of that identity, be destroyed ? and thus 
man be enabled to exert a power which God never 
gave him ; a power which I think it may be shown 
God himself could not give him, even the power of 
self-annihilation ? 

3. Further : It is evident that things in this life do 
not impress themselves upon the memory universally, 
in proportion to their relative importance. Trifles 
sometimes are uppermost when matters of deep mo- 
ment are buried beneath the rubbish that has accu- 
mulated in the storehouse of the mind. Can any one 
believe that it shall be always thus ? or that, amid 
the realities of eternity, the mind shall forever dwell 
on trivial matters to the exclusion of those of more 
importance which now seem to be forgotten? Or 
does it not seem more probable that actions, words, 
thoughts will then be remembered with a distinctness 
precisely proportionate to their relative importance ? 

4. We may deduce another argument from the fact 
that we cannot forget what we please. We have it 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 221 

in our power to say, This I will remember, and we 
can do it ; but it is not in the power of man to say, * 
That I will forget, and it shall be as though it had 
not been. Indeed, to make an effort to forget, what 
is it but to make the impression deeper, and to cause 
it to stand forth with greater prominence ? Trying 
to forget, so far as actual mental exertion is implied, 
is a phrase, if not synonymous with trying to remem- 
ber, yet productive of the same results, as any one 
may perceive by making the experiment. 

Herein we see, as I suppose, why solitary confine- 
ment is a punishment so dreadful ; and why to the 
convicted felon idleness alone is far more irksome 
and less endurable than increasing toil with the so- 
ciety of his fellows. In the latter case he is enabled, 
partially at least, to bury the scenes of his past life 
in forgetfulness. In the former, memory is awake ; 
and is perpetually bringing up before him one deed 
of guilt after another, in long and dread array. He 
is pacing his narrow cell from morn to nightj trying 
to forget. Vain effort ! It is the gnawing of a worm 
that will not die. • 

5. The things which now have a tendency to in- 
duce partial forgetfulness will not always prevail. 
Man will not always be surrounded by the unceasing 
whirl of business, or his attention be distracted by the 
multiplicity of its cares. He will not always have 
it in his power — as he now has to some extent — by 
plunging into scenes of dissipation and revelry, to 
efface the recollection of things unpleasant. What 
takes that man so frequently to the society of the de- 
praved and the dissolute ? or this one to the theater, 



222 



SEKMONS. 



the ball room, the fashionable party? In his own 
slang dialect, he is drowning memory ; driving dull 
care away. The time is coming — the eternity rather- — 
when objects that now distract attention and divert 
the mind shall be removed ; when, in spite of himself, 
man shall have leisure to reflect. And in that leisure 
every deed, and word, and thought of his past exist- 
ence will be seen in its full bearings upon that unal- 
terable state to which they have brought him. 

6. This brings us to the argument from Scripture, 
which we have intentionally reserved until now. If 
our views, as hitherto expressed, are controverted by 
the oracles of truth ; nay, if they be not rather cor- 
roborated thereby, we are satisfied that they should 
be reckoned — what they are, indeed, if this be the 
case — the mere musings of a vain philosophy. 

It is explicitly revealed in the Bible, 

(1.) That, in the future judgment, there will be 
degrees of reward as well as of punishment. One 
star shall differ from another star in glory. "While 
some are beaten with few, others with many stripes. 
For some it will be more, and for others less tolerable 
in that day. 

(2.) That, although faith in the Son of God be the 
meritorious cause of salvation, and the want of it the 
procuring cause of condemnation ; yet, in either case, 
the works of the individual will be the criteria by 
which his reward shall be adjudged, or his condemna- 
tion meted out. 

(3.) That all his works, of whatever class or de- 
scription, from earliest infancy to dissolution, shall be 
taken into the account. It is not in the power of 



THE JUDGMENT REGISTER. 



223 



language to express this truth more dearly or ex- 
plicitly than is done by the sacred writer. (Eccles. 
xii, 14.) 

The argument, then, with these promises, is ex- 
ceedingly simple and easy of comprehension. It 
resolves itself into the plain question : "Would it ap- 
pear just in God to punish or reward an individual 
for actions, words, thoughts, that the individual had 
absolutely and entirely forgotten ? The question is 
not, you perceive, Would it be just — that has an ap- 
pearance of irreverence in it — but, would God's jus- 
tice be apparent to the condemned sinner, for instance, 
sinking to the lowest depths of hell, if then he re- 
membered not the causes that had brought this calam- 
ity upon his soul, or the aggravated instances of his 
iniquities whereby he had treasured up wrath against 
the day of wrath ? It will be conceded on all hands 
that it is expedient that the infinite justice of God, as 
well in the punishment of the guilty as in the recom- 
pense of the righteous, should be manifest to all who 
shall stand before God and participate in those awards. 

If, then, every secret thing is to be taken into the 
account, it follows that every secret thing will be re- 
membered ; and the grand result is, 

10. Every individual is bearing about with him his 
own register for the judgment — even that faculty of 
the soul by which he is now, and shall forever be, as- 
sured of his own identity — a register correct, exact, 
and abundantly competent for the purpose — a regis- 
ter to which each has it in his power to add to an 
indefinite extent ; but from which himself, or any 
other creature, cannot erase one jot or tittle. Leaf 



224 



SERMONS. 



after leaf, as it is turned over, is filled with matter 
that is imperishable. 

My hearer ! it is in thine own power now to say, 
whether the future pages of that record shall be such 
as will afford thee pleasure or pain in the perusal ; 
when thou, with the dead, small and great, shalt 
stand before God, and the books shall be opened, to 
be shut no more forever. 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 225 



XI. 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 

If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and youb 

FAITH IS ALSO VAIN. — 1 Cor. XV, 14. 

It has been observed that the darkest hour is just 
before the dawn, and the observation has been beau- 
tifully transferred from the natural to the moral 
world. Darkness is emblematic of grief and sorrow ; 
light is the emblem of joy and gladness. " Weep- 
ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the 
morning." 

The time that elapsed between the condemnation 
of the Lord Jesus at the bar of Pilate and his resur- 
rection from the grave must have been to his disciples 
a period of deep sorrow, a night of utter darkness. 
It is scarcely possible to conceive a situation more 
desolate and hopeless than theirs during the success- 
ive hours in which their Lord and Master lay ap- 
parently a captive in the grave. The first day passed, 
the second followed and passed away also. Their 
sadness and gloom increased. But the third day had 
scarcely dawned upon the world when the angelic 
messenger directed the women to tell his disciples he 
is risen from the dead. What a transition was that 
from grief to gladness, from darkness to light ! He 
is risen from the dead ! 

15 



226 



SERMONS. 



We propose to consider, 

I. The necessity of fully establishing this great 
truth ; 

II. The evidence upon which it rests ; and, 

III. Some of the consequences resulting from the 
fact thus established. 

I. " If Christ be not risen," says the apostle, " then 
is your preaching vain." 

Vain, because if this be the case, we, the apostles, 
are false witnesses before God; liars, unworthy of 
credence on any subject. What then avails our 
preaching ? 

Yain, for if he be not risen, then was he a false 
prophet, and we, the apostles, are either deluded or 
abettors of the imposition. 

Yain, because by our own showing the commission 
to preach the Gospel to every creature was not given 
till after his resurrection ; and if he be not risen, then 
have we no authority at all. 

Thus boldly does the apostle hazard everything 
upon this one fact. But he goes further. It is not 
enough that he stakes his own reputation and that of 
his coadjutors upon the truth of this doctrine, but, 
addressing the Corinthians, and through them all the 
disciples of the Lord J esus, in every age and clime, he 
declares, If Christ be not risen your faith is also vain. 

Vain, because in that case ye believe a lie, and such 
faith can be of no more avail than the belief of any 
other falsehood. 

Vain, because if he be not risen, then has not his 
atoning sacrifice been accepted. There is no media- 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



227 



tor. Admitting his sufferings and death, if he be yet 
confined to the grave, these sufferings and that death 
were altogether useless. And consequently your faith 
in vain, because in that case there is no ground for you 
to look for salvation, and " they also which are fallen 
asleep in Christ are perished." 

Such are some of the results that inevitably follow 
if the fact of his resurrection be — not denied, any fool 
may do that, but — proved false. The apostle frankly 
and fearlessly asserts them ; giving ample evidence 
that he at least believed the fact. 

But he was not only convinced himself of its truth : 
he intimates that it is so strongly corroborated, so 
firmly established, that candor and common sense 
everywhere must admit the fact also. Let us look, 
then, 

II. At the evidence upon which it rests 
This is of a twofold character; and I take the 
liberty to call it, first, natural ; secondly, supernatu- 
ral. 

1. The natural evidence results, as the evidence for 
any other event must necessarily result, from human 
testimony. The apostle sums it up briefly thus : 
" He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve ; after 
that he was seen of five hundred brethren at once. 
After that he was seen of James, then of all the 
apostles ; and last of all he was seen of me also, as 
of one born out of due time." 

The testimony is such as would be sufficient of it- 
self to confirm the truth of any event whatever. Let 
us look at it a moment. 



228 



SERMONS. 



(1.) The witnesses are sufficiently numerous. One 
or two might be mistaken, but a mistake is out of the 
question when we consider the number who testify to 
the facts in the case before us. 

(2.) They are perfectly competent to testify. Many 
of them were intimately acquainted with the person 
of the Lord Jesus during the three years of his min- 
istry. All of them, as we may gather from the term 
brethren, used by the apostle, knew him before his 
death, and consequently could not be deceived as to 
his identity. 

(3.) They were men of veracity. Their character 
for truth is unimpeached ; consequently no one has 
a right to call in question the statement made by 
them. 

(4.) They could expect to gain nothing either in 
this world or in the next by making the assertion if 
it were not true. Certainly nothing in a future 
world. The wildest creed that human ingenuity has 
ever invented does not profess to hold out a reward 
there for falsehood perpetrated here. As to the 
present life, nothing could by any possibility be 
gained either of wealth or honor by persisting in 
a story so much at variance with the belief and 
wishes of the whole world. On the contrary, it is 
evident, 

(5.) That their interest, so far as regards this life, 
lay directly the other way. Money, we know, in one 
instance was given by those in authority as a compen- 
sation for the utterance of a shallow falsehood. There 
can be no doubt that these witnesses too would have 
been paid not merely for denying the truth of the 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 229 



fact which they asserted, but even for silence respect- 
ing it, could they have been prevailed upon by any 
means to such a course. 

In view, then, of all these facts, how stands the 
case ? Men of unblemished reputation, of different 
occupations and professions, without hope of reward, 
nay, with the prospect of injury and reproach, per- 
sist in the assertion of one and the same truth. 
Jesus Christ was crucified, dead and buried. This 
is not denied. We saw him, say these witnesses, 
alive after the crucifixion. He is risen from the 
dead. 

And here, were we arguing a case of less import, 
we may safely leave it. On all the pages of history 
there does not stand one fact more fully corroborated, 
more amply sustained. Of no one event that has 
ever occurred in the world's history, with the excep- 
tion of those to which ourselves have been eye-wit- 
nesses, have we more indubitable assurance than of 
the fact, Christ is risen. 

Ample, and indeed overwhelming, as is the testi- 
mony already adverted to, there is more and higher 
evidence to be adduced. Of a fact which may be 
denominated the main pillar of Christianity, God 
has not left himself without witness ; and as it is to 
this part of our subject that we more particularly 
wish to direct attention, we shall be excused for 
dwelling on it a little more at length. 

The first branch of the supernatural evidence on 
this subject we deduce from the language of the apos- 
tle before us. " If Christ," says he, " be not risen, 
our preaching is vain." The most skeptical could 



230 



SEKMOXS. 



not ask a more frank or a bolder avowal than this. 
We take the liberty to assume the converse of the 
proposition ; it stands logically thus : If the preach- 
ing of the apostles was not a vain thing, then Christ 
is risen. Is not that perfectly satisfactory ? If the 
objector is willing to receive the proposition as it 
stands, and we are quite willing that he should, we 
have a right to demand that he receive the converse 
of the proposition as here stated also. The only 
inquiry then, is, Was the preaching of the apostles a 
vain thing % Here we have the vantage ground. 
Did the objector believe, nay, were he able even to 
prove, that the preaching of the apostles was vain, 
still he would not thereby disprove the fact of 
Christ's resurrection. There might by possibility 
be some other reason, but clearly and without a 
peg on which to hang a demurrer. If the preach- 
ing alluded to was not a vain thing, then Christ is 
risen. 

Is it required of us to prove the negative ? We 
have never yet found the man who would do more 
than assume the- affirmative. Indeed, while it cannot 
be proved that the preaching of the apostles was 
ever in any one instance a vain thing, or even the 
preaching of any of their legitimate successors from 
that day to the present, there are a few things which 
at least seem to prove that their preaching was not 
in vain. 

In every age, from the days of the apostles to the 
present, there have been individuals whose whole 
moral character has from some cause or other under- 
gone a radical and entire change. "They were once 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 231 

vile, profligate, abandoned, the pests of society, a 
curse to their race. How is it that in after life they 
have exhibited a picture the very reverse of all 
this? What has transformed the drunkard into 
a sober man ? silenced the tongue of the blas- 
phemer ? changed the restless persecutor into a pa- 
tient martyr ? animated with the meekness of the 
lamb the breast that once burned with the rage of 
the tiger ? Instances of this kind are not strange or 
uncommon. They have been seen everywhere. Such 
effects surely could not have been produced without 
some cause. Ask the individuals themselves ; they 
have a right to know something about it ; and with 
one voice they attribute it to the Gospel, as preached 
by the apostles and their successors. Do they? 
Then, in their case at least, " our preaching " is not 
in vain ; and if it be not, then Christ is risen. 

Again, it will be admitted that there have been 
instances not only of individuals, but of entire com- 
munities, who, from some cause or other, have aban- 
doned the temples of idolatry, and erected altars to 
the name of Christ. The senseless worship of the 
workmanship of their own hands has been given up ; 
the idols are ridiculed by those who once adored 
them ; and the temples once built and beautified at 
great expense are permitted quietly to crumble into 
ruin. We ask a cause for all this ; we would have a 
reason for it. Has the preaching of the cross had 
anything to do in effecting it ? If it has, then has it 
not been vain ; and if not, then is Christ risen. 

The evidence of this kind is constantly cumula- 
tive. Everywhere, from the date of his ascension to 



232 



SERMONS. 



the present time, new testimony has been advanced 
of the same character, and all converging to the 
same point. Thus, too, it will be until time shall 
be no longer, until testimony shall be no more needed 
to establish the fact, for then " every eye shall see 
him." 

2. Another branch of this evidence is drawn from 
the fulfillment of the promise made by the Saviour 
while on earth ; promises which were made by him- 
self to depend on his resurrection from the dead, and 
his ascension into heaven. " It is expedient for you," 
said he in his last interview with his disciples, " that 
I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter will 
not come unto you : but if I depart, I will send him 
unto you." Now, if he rose not from the dead he 
could not send the promised Comforter ; the moulder- 
ing tenant of the grave indisputably has no power 
to send. History unimpeached and unimpeachable, 
declares that after his crucifixion this promise was 
fulfilled : the Comforter was sent. But the histo- 
rians may have been deceived. Possibly, though 
not at all probable ; and if they were, it matters 
little ; we have such a superabundance of testimony 
that though the record of the events of the day of 
Pentecost, were ruled out, ay, or obliterated forever, 
the fact of Christ's resurrection, predicated as it is 
of the coming of the Holy Ghost, remains an estab- 
lished fact. 

We have a vivid remembrance of the manner in 
which it was our privilege to hear this argument 
illustrated by a late eminent minister. "A father 
of a family," said he, " about to leave his wife and 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 233 

4 

little ones for a far distant city, informs them at 
his departure that as soon as he arrives at the port 
of his destination he will write them a letter, and 
will send for each tokens of his love. Days and 
weeks pass away. The thoughts of the family at 
home dwell on him who has left them. Perchance, 
say they, as they listen at midnight to the roaring of 
the tempest, father may find a watery grave. We 
may never see him again. ' As they commune to- 
gether and reason they are sad.' At length, how- 
ever, after a much longer time than they anticipated, 
a letter reaches that desolate dwelling. ' Joy cometh 
in the morning.' It is the handwriting of the hus- 
band and the father. Do they want more evidence 
that he is not buried in the ocean ? They have 
more. Scarcely has the letter passed around the 
little group, and each eye ceased to trace the dictates 
of parental fondness, when a messenger arrives bear- 
ing for each the promised tokens of his remembrance. 
'Tis enough. Father did not perish in the waters. 
He arrived safely at the desired haven." Precisely 
of this character is the evidence which the Christian 
has of the resurrection of his Lord. He did not 
see corruption ; he ascended up on high, leading 
captivity captive. I know that fact — I have re- 
ceived a token of his affection — he received gifts for 
men. 

Thus every manifestation of the Spirit attests his 
resurrection, and every one who has received it is a 
witness competent to testify to the fact. 

3. We go further. It is not enough that profess- 
ing Christians may be summoned to give evidence in 



234 SERMONS. 

% 

this case ; the whole world of mankind may be ap- 
pealed to. 6 ■ When he is come," the promise was, 
" he will convince the world of sin." In other words, 
he will cause man to feel his guilt, to know himself 
a sinner. Hence, not only every exulting shout of 
the new-born soul attests the fact of Christ's resur- 
rection, not only in every penitential tear a seal 
attesting the same truth ; but every man throughout 
the vast extent of this broad earth, who has ever 
looked with disquiet upon the present, with regret 
upon the past, and with fearful forebodings upon the 
future, whoever or wherever he may be, I challenge 
as a witness to establish the resurrection of the Re- 
deemer. For thus stands the argument. Those feel- 
ings to which I have adverted were caused by the 
motions of that Spirit who was sent into the world 
by a risen Saviour. Hence, if Christ had not risen 
they had been forever strangers to his bosom, and he 
would have passed on through his probation without 
a pang at the recollection of the past, or a fear for 
the anticipated future. This being the case, the 
world, we say, is full of witnesses to the truth of the 
fact under consideration. Take, then, any individual 
who has arrived at accountability within the circum- 
ference of Christendom — propose the simple ques- 
tion, has he ever felt his guilt ? realized in any degree 
his danger as a violator of God's laws ? Does he 
admit it ? 'Tis enough. Out of his own mouth is 
he judged — Christ is risen ! But he hesitates — he 
falters a denial. Hold ! Add not another false- 
hood to the black catalogue. The world has been 
reproved of sin — reproved by that Spirit who came 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



235 



only as a pledge and confirmation of the fact, Christ 
is risen. 

III. Some of the consequences necessarily follow- 
ing from the truth thus established will close these 
remarks. 

1. The believer derives from it an unwavering 
assurance of his own resurrection. "Because he 
lives I shall live also." He views the grave not as a 
gloomy prison house, but as the vestibule, the ante- 
chamber of the place prepared for him in the city of 
God. Through a well-grounded assurance of his 
acceptance with God he is enabled calmly to com- 
mend his spirit to Him who gave it, and to lay his 
body in the tomb. 

" His Saviour has passed through its portals before him, 
And death hath no sting, 1 for the Sinless hath died.' " 

2. The resurrection of Christ affords an ample 
guaranty for the truth of the doctrines which he 
taught — for the whole, as a system, as well as for 
each in particular. It follows that he who rejects it, 
or any part of it, does so at his own peril. Even the 
deist must admit that the all-wise Ruler of the uni- 
verse could not have given his sanction in so eminent 
a manner to an impostor, which Christ indisputably 
was if he promulgated falsehood to the world. 

It is true, then, that unless a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God. It is true, that 
there is a place of outer darkness, where the worm 
dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched. 

3. The promises made by Christ will be accoin- 



236 



SERMONS. 



plished, and his threatenings will be fulfilled. I need 
not call them up in long array. The former to the 
Christian are familiar as household words, and the 
latter are readily to be found by those they most con- 
cern. If Christ be risen, and of this no rational 
being can entertain an honest doubt, not one jot or 
tittle shall fail until all be fulfilled. 



[A large part of Dr. Floy's literary remains consisted of outlines of 
sermons, prepared evidently with much care, and preserved in the form 
given them as studies for the pulpit. A single specimen is given, 
taken almost without selection from the mass.] 

PRAYER FOR OTHERS. 

Job xm, 10. 

By the captivity of Job we are evidently to understand the 
deep afflictions by which it pleased God to try him as perhaps 
no other man ever was tried. They included loss of property, 
bereavement of children, alienation of friends, bodily pain, 
spiritual darkness. By the turning of that captivity his resto- 
ration to all those blessings is evidently intended : " The Lord 
gave Job twice as much as he had before," and " the Lord blessed 
the latter end of Job more than his beginning." The Lord, 
says the text, did this when he prayed for his friends. He had 
prayed much, and fervently, for himself, and there is nothing 
in the Bible that exceeds in pathos and sublimity the prayers of 
this man of sorrows for himself ; but his captivity was not turned 
in ansVer to those prayers but when he prayed for his friends. 
Those friends, moreover, were not, to say the least, very friendly. 
]STay, they deserved not the name in its strict sense. They had 
added to his afflictions by taunting him with hypocrisy. They 



PRAYER FOR OTHERS. 



237 



had done this maliciously, as may be inferred from God's de- 
claration to one of them : " My wrath is kindled against thee 
and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the 
thing that is right." Our subject then is, 
Prayer for others ; and I purpose to notice, 

I. The obligations on which this duty rests ; and, 

II. The benefits thence resulting. 

1. 1. I name first, as a foundation for this duty, the great law 
of reciprocity. " What ye would that others should do unto 
you, do ye so unto them." It is a common request, Pray for 
me. Why do you ask for the prayers of others ? Is it a mere 
form with which you round off your tale in a class-meeting ? 
or is it a sincere request ? By what right do you ask others to 
pray for you if your own prayers are all for self ? 

2. I name as another reason for this duty the obligation we 
are under to do all the good we can to all men. We cannot 
all feed the hungry, nor give largely of our store. We can do 
better things, greater things. We can open the hand of an 
all- wise and all-bountiful God, and bring blessings down upon 
them. 

3. The example of Christ shall be my next argument. A 
Christian is one who follows Christ, who makes him his model, 
and imitates him so far as he is imitable by a finite creature. 
We read frequently of Christ's praying. For whom ? For 
himself ? for his disciples, his real friends ? Yes, but not for 
them only. For the wicked, the world, his enemies, murderers. 

4. The express commands of God enforce this duty upon 
us: For all men; for all conditions of men; for them that 
despitefully use us and persecute us, etc. 

II. 1. Prayer for others will increase our love for them. 
You cannot pray in sincerity for any one and have in your 
breast any hatred or ill-will toward him. You cannot do it 
without feeling your heart warm toward that individual, and 
the more and the more fervently you do it the more will you 
become like Christ, whose love sent him down into our world 
to die for enemies. O to be like Christ, to have a heart beating 
in sympathy with his heart ! 



238 



SERMONS. 



2. It is a sovereign remedy, I know not but it is the only 
remedy, for selfishness ; and O how much there is of this in the 
world, in the Christian world; ay, at the Christian's family 
altar, and even in liil closet. Charity should begin at home ; 
ay, but it should not stay there ; and not until the Christian 
loves his neighbor as himself does he reach the standard Christ 
has given him ; nor is there any probability of his reaching that 
standard until he learns to pray for his fellow-men with some- 
thing like the frequency and the fervor with which he prays for 
himself. 

8. The prosperity of the cause of Christ is the result of such 
prayers. As a general thing, shiners are not converted by 
preaching. The preacher is like the farmer who sows his seed ; 
he may sow it well, dividing to every one his portion ; but it 
must be watered from on high. He gives the Holy Spirit to 
them who ask. 

4. Finally, and this is the glorious truth most directly taught 
in the text, Prayer for others is the best method of securing 
blessings for ourselves. I know not why else the Holy Spirit 
left on record the assurance that God turned the captivity of 
Job when he prayed for them. 

(1.) Temporal. Verse 10. There is a great deal more pov- 
erty than there would be if men were not so selfish in their 
prayers. (2.) Spiritual. It puts the soul in a proper frame to 
receive God's choicest blessings. (3.) Eternal. Who will have 
the brightest crown, the highest seat ? It will not be the most 
eloquent preacher, but he who has done most for the advance- 
ment of Christ's kingdom on earth, in whose soul selfishness has 
been most thoroughly destroyed, and who has exhibited most 
love for his fellows. 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



Edward Payson" was an eloquent and eminently 
successful preacher. He was more — and this reveals 
the secret of his success, if not the mainspring which 
gave power to his eloquence — he was a zealous Chris- 
tian, a man of prayer. His career, indeed, was brief : 
he was translated in his forty-fifth year ; but it was 
glorious, and his memory is blessed. The cool, cal- 
culating disciple will probably consider his abundant 
labors and his untiring zeal as suicidal, and look upon 
his early though triumphant death as little better 
than self-immolation. There are those whose zeal 
for the glory of the Lord of hosts is largely modified 
by their desire for, and in their opinion, by the ne- 
cessity of, self-preservation. It is, confessedly, the 
first law of nature ; but it is not the first in the ethics 
of Christ, nor deemed paramount by his apostles — a 
law which, though it may not be utterly trampled 
upon by their successors, yet has no binding force 

* 1. A Memoir of the Rev. Edward Payson, D.D., late Pastor of the 
Second Church in Portland. By Asa Ctjmmings, Editor of the Chris- 
tian Mirror. Fifth edition. Boston and Xew York. 1832. • 

2. Sermons by the late Edward Payson, D.D. 8vo. Portland. 
1828.. 

3. Sermons by Edward Payson, D.D. 12mo. Portland. 1831. 
(Another selection.) , 

4. Sermons for Christian Families, by Edward Payson, D.D. 18mo. 
Boston. 1832. 



240 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



when obedience to it would hazard the salvation of 
those for whom Christ died, or jeopard the advance- 
ment of God's glory. " To spend and be spent," 
is the motto of Paul's legitimate successors. Like 
him, Payson counted not his life dear unto him so he 
might finish his course with joy, and the ministry 
which he had received of the Lord Jesus. Enough 
for him to know, 

u The less of this cold earth, the more of heaven : 
The shorter life, the longer immortality." 

But it may be asked — and similar questions often 
arise — would not a greater share of prudence have 
insured a larger amount of usefulness ? To this, a 
categorical answer of course cannot be given. "We 
know not, and have no means of ascertaining, what 
might have been. Although it will be apparent to 
every reader of his memoir that prudence would, in 
all probability, have prolonged his life, yet in man's 
brief history, and least of all, in the history of an 
embassador of Christ, length of life and usefulness 
are not synonymous. Had he labored less, and 
preached seldomer ; had his errands of love in search 
of his Master's lost sheep, his visits of mercy to the 
sick and the dying, been more infrequent ; in a word, 
what his hand found to do, had he not done with his 
might, Edward Payson might still have been an 
inhabitant of this lower world. He might have been, 
but we do not know that he would have been. It is 
written, " He that loveth his life shall lose it." 

He was born in 1783. The precise date of his con- 
version is not ascertained. Favored with the instruc- 



EDWARD PAYSOST, D.D. 



241 



tions, example, and prayers of devotedly pious parents, 
he was early initiated in the duties of religion. At 
the age of three years, it is said he would converse 
with his mother on religious topics ; and although 
there is no positive evidence that he was a subject of 
regenerating grace at that early period, yet there can 
be no doubt that it was owing partly to the theoreti- 
cal knowledge of the plan of salvation thus early 
acquired, and partly to the strict morality in which he 
had been nurtured, that his entrance into the spiritual 
kingdom was " without observation." The transition 
in some is indisputably far more obvious than in oth- 
ers ; and the relative remarkableness of this change 
depends greatly upon previous habits and instruction. 

After graduating at the Harvard University in 
1803, he took charge of an academy at Portland, an 
employment which, from the unceasing routine of the 
same duties, however favorable they may be to growth 
in grace, is not calculated to develop talents which 
attract the public eye. It w r as while he held this 
situation that he made a public profession of religion 
by uniting with the Church of which his father was 
pastor. That Church was Calvinistic, and his biogra- 
pher, himself a Calvinist, has given us a sample of 
the embarrassments in which Mr. Payson thus early 
found himself involved with reference to the peculiari- 
ties of that creed. 

" Scarcely two months," he tells us, " had elapsed 
from the time he made a public profession of religion 
before Mr. Payson felt his mind embarrassed in rela- 
tion to the doctrines of the Bible as understood by the 
Calvinists," 

16 



242 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



The reader may possibly be inclined to wonder 
that so acute a mind as Payson's did not at least per- 
ceive the difficulties of Calvinism before he united 
with that branch of the Church. In our own denom- 
ination the doctrines of the Bible, as understood by 
us, have never, in a single instance, so far as our 
information extends, caused any embarrassment after 
an individual has united with us. And the reason, 
on a moment's reflection, is obvious. Arminianism 
is fair and aboveboard ; it has no hair-splitting dis- 
tinctions without a difference. There is no indoctri- 
nating process through which the young disciple is 
called to pass. The doctrines he is taught are the 
same after as they were before his conversion. Very 
different is the Calvinistic process. By our brethren 
of that order the Gospel is preached to sinners with 
a fullness and a freeness as if they really believed, 
without mental reservation, that all their hearers 
have a natural gracious moral ability to comply with 
the invitations of Christ. But after the sinner has 
embraced the Saviour, and united with the Church, 
then the secrets of the creed are spread before him ; 
and his mind, as in the case before us, begins to be 
" embarrassed in relation to the doctrines of the Bible 
as understood by Calvinists." 

The first intimation of Payson's perplexity on this 
subject, his biographer tells us, is in the following 
words, (apparently an extract from a letter to some 
friend :) " I have lately read Cole's Discourses. It is 
a very comfortable doctrine for the elect, but not so 
for the sinner. My feelings say it is true, but reason 
wants to put in an oar." Again he says : " I know 



EDWARD PAYSOX, D.D. 



243 



not what to do. On one hand the arguments in favor 
of Calvinism are strong, and what is more to the 
point, I feel that most of them must be true ; and 
yet there are difficulties, strong difficulties ... in 
the way." 

The hiatus^ indicating an omission in this last para- 
graph, is, to say the least, discreditable to the biogra- 
pher. It looks suspicious. Did the original read, 
insuperable difficulties in the way ? 

As Payson observes, Calvinism is a very comforta- 
ble doctrine for the elect. Hence its peculiarities are 
carefully concealed from the individual, at least as a 
general thing, until he has obtained a hope that he 
himself is one of that number. Then the comforts 
of the creed and his reason are placed in opposing 
balances. They remain in equipoise a longer or a 
shorter space, according to the temperament of the 
individual. " I know not what to do." Selfishness 
is then thrown into the scale with comfort, and Cal- 
vinism triumphs. Did the reader ever know a man 
professing to believe the peculiarities of Calvinism 
who did not also believe that he had a hope that he 
was one of the elect ? 

In alluding to these things it is far from our pur- 
pose to question Mr. Payson's sincerity, or to intimate 
any doubt respecting the strength of his reasoning 
faculties. We can but regret that with his powerful 
intellect he did not grapple with those " strong diffi- 
culties " of the Calvinian creed before he united with 
that branch of the Church ; and that, even after that 
event, he did not, to use his own expression, allow 
his " reason to put in an oar." Even then, in his 



244 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 

hands, it might have sculled him, to pursue the meta- 
phor, clean through his difficulties into the broad sea 
of God's impartial love. That Infinite Being to 
whom man is indebted for his reasoning faculties 
never gave him a revelation, or invented, a system, 
that contradicts his reason. The same fountain doth 
not send forth sweet water and bitter. 

Payson's Calvinism, however, seems to have been 
of the more moderate sort; and, if we may judge 
from the volumes of his sermons before us, the pecul- 
iarities of that creed made but a very small part of 
his pulpit exhibitions. 

His mind appears to have been exercised with 
reference to his call to the ministry while engaged in 
the duties of his school, in which, as we gather from 
his journal, he had the happy faculty of blending 
religious with literary instruction. He was in the 
habit of lecturing his pupils on subjects connected 
with Christianity, and some of these lectures were 
protracted in length to three quarters of an hour ; an 
admirable preparative for the more public duties of 
the sanctuary, to which he soon after devoted himself. 
The ordination sermon at his installation as associate 
pastor of the Congregational church at Portland was 
preached by his father ; and though, as a literary pro- 
duction, it is not remarkable, yet from the rather 
unusual circumstance of a venerable parent's thus 
officiating at the most important era of his son's glo- 
rious career, it possesses considerable interest. We 
copy a few of the concluding sentences : 

" In laboring to form your mind to ministerial 
fidelity, may I not hope for some assistance from that 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



245 



active principle of filial affection which has ever 
rendered yon stndions of a father's comfort ? I can 
think with calmness, nay, with a degree of pleasure, 
of your suffering for righteousness' sake ; and, should 
the world pour upon you its obloquy, its scorn and 
reproach, for your fidelity to your Master's cause, a 
father's heart would still embrace you with, if possi- 
ble, increased fondness. But to see you losing sight 
of the great objects which ought to engage your 
attention, courting the applause of the world, infected 
with the infidel sentiments of the day, and neglect- 
ing the immortal interests of those now about to be 
committed to your care, this, O my son, I could not 
support. It would bring down my gray hairs with 
sorrow to the grave. But is it possible that in such 
a cause, with such motives to fidelity, and with pros- 
pects, may I not add, so peculiarly pleasing as those 
which now surround you, you should, notwithstand- 
ing, prove unfaithful % It is possible ; for there is 
nothing too base, too ungrateful, or destructive of our 
own most important interests, for human nature to 
commit ; and unless the grace of the Lord Jesus pre- 
serve you, the glory of God will be forgotten, your 
Saviour will, by you, be crucified afresh, and his 
cause exposed to shame ; your sacred character will 
become your reproach, and, instead of the blessings 
of many ready to perish, you will accumulate the 
curses of perishing souls upon your head. May your 
preservation from this awful fate be the theme of our 
future eternal praises. . . . Keceive, my dear 
son, in one word, the sum of all a father's fond 
wishes, ' Be thou faithful unto death.' " 



246 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



These fond anticipations of a father's heart were 
fully realized. Popularity, not always indeed the 
test of faithfulness, attended the young pastor from 
the commencement of his efforts ; a popularity not 
coveted by himself, but the unavoidable result of 
talents well employed, and zeal and fidelity increas- 
ing and ever visible. Over the same Church in which, 
as we have seen, he was ordained, he continued to 
exercise the pastoral oversight even unto death. In 
the course of his life he received several " calls," as 
the technical phrase is, to leave the Church in Port- 
land and accept other charges. Some of these 
" calls," particularly one from the Cedar-street Church, 
in New York, were long and loud. But he heeded 
them not, showing himself " not greedy of filthy 
lucre," and desirous to abstain from even the " appear- 
ance of evil." Alluding to these repeated calls, in a 
letter to his mother dated Jan. 25, 1826, he says : 

" A removal would be death to my reputation in 
this part of the country — I mean my Christian repu- 
tation ; and, what is far worse, it would bring great 
reproach upon religion. At present my worst ene- 
mies, and the worst enemies of religion, seem disposed 
to allow that I am sincere, upright, and uninfluenced 
by those motives which govern worldly-minded men. 
But had I gone to Boston, and,, much more, should I 
now go to New York, they would at once triumph- 
antly exclaim, ' Ah ! they are all alike ; all governed 
by worldly motives. They preach against the love 
of money and the love of applause, but they will 
gratify either of these passions when a fair opportu- 
nity offers.' Now I had much rather die than give 



EDWARD PAYSQNj D.D. 



247 



them an occasion thus to speak reproachfully. It 
would be overthrowing all which I have been labor- 
ing to build up. Indeed, I can see no reason why 
God should suffer these repeated invitations to be 
sent to me, unless it be to give mean opportunity to 
show the world that all ministers are not actuated by 
mercenary or ambitious views. I have already some 
reason to believe that my refusal to accept the two 
calls has done more to convince the enemies of reli- 
gion that there is a reality in it, than a thousand ser- 
mons would have done." 

The preceding extract shows in an amiable light 
his jealousy for the interests of his Master's cause. 
It exhibits, also, in vivid colors, the inherent evils of 
the " call " system. Under what other system would 
the world need evidence that " all ministers are not 
actuated by mercenary or selfish views ? " It is true, 
and we take pleasure in bearing testimony to the 
fact, that the responses to these " calls " are not, in 
every instance, evidence of mercenary or ambitious 
views ; but it is equally true, as Mr. Payson hints, 
the world thinks they are, especially when the " call " 
is from a less to a more honorable and lucrative sta- 
tion ; and the converse is seldom given, and still sel- 
domer complied with. But the ill effects of the 
system are not seen only in this way. The opinions 
of the gainsayer and the scoffer might be deemed of 
little import. The effects of the system are positively 
and palpably injurious to the Church. At any mo- 
ment the ties which bind a faithful minister to the 
flock who are perfectly satisfied with their pastor are 
liable to be severed; and this because some other 



248 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



flock who are better provided with this world's goods 
think proper to give him a " call." Thus pulpit elo- 
quence, like that of the bar, is made a marketable 
commodity ; zeal the standard of salary ; and the 
gifts of the Holy Ghost are exercised at the " call " 
of the highest bidder. " To the poor," said Christ, 
" the Gospel is preached ;" but, on this system, it is 
most evident that unless the supply of laborers is fully 
equal to the demand, the poorer portions of God's 
heritage must go untilled. 

The troubles and commotions arising in the flock 
of Christ even from the prospect of the operations of 
this system are, we were going to say, ludicrous, and 
they are so, but at the same time they are lamentable. 
Take the following specimen : 

" When Park-street Church, in Boston, was left 
vacant by the removal of Dr. Griffin, Mr. Payson's 
charge had unpleasant apprehensions of losing their 
beloved pastor. It is in allusion to this time that he 
says in a letter : ' We have been kept in a fever here 
all this winter by perpetual alarms from Boston. 
Because I do not refuse before I am asked, and ex- 
claim loudly against going, some of my people suspect 
I wish to go. . . . No application has yet been 
made from B., though much has been said about it. 
It is very doubtful whether any will be made. I 
feel very easy about it myself, but the Church are in 
great tribulation.' " 

It is not quite clear that the tribulation which the 
Saviour forewarned his followers awaited them, was 
to arise from any such source, though we are willing 
to admit, on the strength of Mr. Payson's assertion, 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



249 



seeing he had the best right to know, that the tribula- 
tion of the Second Church in Portland was on this 
occasion great. 

History has given us no hint of any afflictions of 
this nature in the early ages of the Christian Church. 
It is nowhere intimated that the Ephesians were in 
any " fever " lest some wealthier Church should suc- 
ceed in robbing them of the services of Timothy by 
holding out to him a prospect of greater usefulness 
in the shape of a larger salary; 

"While on this subject, it occurs to us to remark 
here, for the special benefit of those who are contin- 
ually harping on the authority of bishops and the 
vested rights and powers of conferences, that in pe- 
rusing the memoir before us we have been forcibly 
struck with the unequal and one-sided nature of the 
contract called a settlement or installation. Had Mr. 
Payson been the very reverse of what he was ; instead 
of being popular had he been disagreeable to a large 
majority of his people ; nay, after his installment had 
he proved utterly deficient, and the Church unani- 
mously desired his removal, there was no power by 
which it could be effected against his will. The con- 
tract bound them, and left him free. Nothing short 
of death, or detection in gross immorality sufficient 
to deprive him altogether of Church membership, can 
cut the knot with which installation ties the people 
to the pastor. To him it is a thread of gossamer ; to 
them a cord of perdurable toughness. 

Borne on the full tide of popularity from the first 
hour of his pastoral labors at Portland, Mr. Payson's 
experience coincided with that of others who have 



250 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



been similarly circumstanced. Popularity, although 
it afforded him the means of extending his usefulness, 
cost him dear. " No one," says he, " can conceive 
how dearly it is purchased ; what unspeakably dread- 
ful temptations, bufferings, and workings of depravity 
are necessary to counteract the pernicious effects of 
this poison." 

It is an exceedingly subtle question, how far a de- 
sire for popularity may lawfully extend on the part 
of an embassador for Christ. On the one hand, a 
reputation for learning and eloquence may, in many 
cases will, extend a minister's usefulness, and in this 
respect it is doubtless desirable; yet, on the other, 
there is unspeakably great danger that popularity 
may be sought for its own sake, and when obtained, 
efforts be made to extend and perpetuate it not war- 
ranted by the simplicity of the Gospel. What may 
be lawful as a means becomes sinful as an end. It 
were well if those who are ambitious of a popularity 
like that of Payson would ask themselves a question 
similar to one proposed to his disciples by the Lord 
Jesus on a certain occasion, " Are we able to drink 
of the cup that he drank of, and to be baptized with 
the baptism that he was baptized with ? " and not 
rashly to answer, "We are able." The blast that 
shivers in fragments the lofty cedar passes harmlessly 
over the more humble and therefore more useful 
shrubbery. 

Writing to his mother he remarks : " After telling 
you that religion thus flourishes among us, I am 
ashamed to complain ; for what reason of complaint 
can a minister have while he sees the cause of Christ 



EDWARD PAYSOISr, D.D. 



251 



triumphant ? Nor do I complain of anything except 
myself. Every earthly thing is imbittered to me, and 
the enjoyments of religion are kept far above out of 
my reach. I am overwhelmed by one wave of tempt- 
ation after another." 

The following extract shows the severity of these 
temptations, not uncommon to eminent ministers. 
The late Robert Hall, in his day perhaps the most 
popular preacher in England, suffered from the same 
source ; and Haliburton had a similar experience, 
expressing himself in nearly the same terms. 

" I have been sick," he again writes, " and laid by 
from preaching on thanksgiving day and two Sab- 
baths, but am now able to resume my labors. But 
O the temptations which have harassed me for the 
last three months ! I have met with nothing like 
them in books. I dare not mention them to any mor- 
tal, lest they should trouble him as they have troubled 
me." 

"We have nothing to say on the apparent discrep- 
ance between the theoretical and practical doctrines 
of Calvinism, as developed in his journals and medi- 
tations. Payson, though he held, as we suppose, to 
the theory of the perseverance of the saints, yet here 
gives practical evidence of the great and increasing 
difficulties himself had to contend with in order to 
make his calling and election sure. His sentiment 
in other words is, If I do not persevere and overcome 
these ever-increasing difficulties I shall fall. This, 
though from a Calvinist, is Arminianism. 

Payson, however, did persevere, and obtained a 
complete and glorious victory over these temptations ; 



252 



REVIEWS AKD ESSAYS. 



and to this circumstance he was indebted for the 
readiness and skill with which in the course of his 
ministry he was enabled to administer consolation to 
those of his flock who labored under circumstances of 
peculiar trial. Like his great Master, " in that he 
himself suffered, being tempted, he was able to suc- 
cor them that were tempted." In this department 
of ministerial duty he was eminently faithful and 
successful ; visiting from house to house ; exhorting, 
admonishing, reproving, comforting. As a preacher 
he was great, but greater as a pastor. The union of 
the two rendered his success in winning souls to 
Christ so remarkable. 

He had a most happy faculty of conducting a reli- 
gious conversation, leading the minds of those with 
whom he associated directly to the main object for 
which they ought to live. He made no visits of mere 
ceremony, nor was ever guilty of those witticisms 
and levities which are so destructive of ministerial 
usefulness, and are sometimes exercised and dignified 
by the title of — ministerial relaxations. 

With the high and the low, the ignorant and the 
educated, the rich and the poor, he was equally at 
home, and could discern the specific spiritual maladies 
of those he conversed with, and suggest the remedy 
with as much readiness and certainty as the skillful 
physician can those of bodily disease. And why 
should not every pastor, at least in some degree, be 
enabled to do the same? Studying sermons and 
preaching eloquently are not the whole, nor yet the 
most important of a minister's qualifications. One 
man in a thousand has the faculty of acquiring fame 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



253 



by his eloquence. Not one of the remaining nine 
hundred and ninety-nine, if called to labor in this 
vineyard by the great Head of the Church, and im- 
bued with his Spirit, but may become a faithful pas- 
tor, and secure the affection and love of all within 
the circle of his influence — a circle, under our econ- 
omy, continually widening its diameter. Just as it 
is in the natural world, the things most essential, and 
which ought therefore to be the most desirable, are 
the most readily attained. Gold, and pearls, and 
precious stones are hidden in the bowels of the earth 
or the depths of the ocean. A few, by toil and dan- 
ger, may obtain them. On the other hand, water, 
that first of necessaries, flows spontaneously every- 
where. Bread, the staff of life, and all the other 
kindly fruits of the earth, are within every one's 
reach who will put forth the hand of even moderate 
industry. God's benevolence to the children of men 
is most wonderfully displayed by the fact — to which 
there is scarcely an exception in the kingdoms of na- 
ture or of grace — the things most desirable are most 
easily obtained. 

Mr. Payson was also remarkable for the regularity 
and method of his pastoral visits. Soon after his 
settlement in Portland he divided his whole charge 
into districts, and gave public notice of the time when 
each family might expect a visit from their minister. 
The result was, that in most instances he found the 
family at home ; and, spending no time in idle gossip 
or unmeaning compliments, he was enabled in the 
short space of half an hour to converse with each 
individual, to suggest hints for their spiritual im- 



254: 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



provement, to give advice adapted to the peculiar 
circumstances of each, and to lead the devotions at 
the family altar. This practice he continued until 
his health and strength failed him. No wonder he 
was popular, or that his memory among that people 
is even to this day like ointment poured forth ; and 
where is the minister who, if so disposed, might not 
imitate him in this respect % 

One of Mr. Payson's distinguishing peculiarities 
was the remarkable spirit of prayer which he pos- 
sessed. His public addresses to the throne of grace 
were models of excellence. Combining fervor with 
simplicity, and breathing in sublimest strains his 
wants and wishes into the ear of the Almighty, it 
seemed as if, like Moses of old, he was indeed per- 
mitted to hold converse with him face to face. 
" That, sir," said one of his constant hearers to a 
stranger visiting the church in which he officiated, 
soon after his death, " that, sir," pointing to the pul- 
pit, " is the place where Payson — -prayed." There 
was no part of his pulpit exercises which so forcibly 
struck the ear of strangers as his manner of address- 
ing the throne- of grace. Rich, varied, copious, and 
at the same time simple and unadorned save with 
the sublimest thoughts and language of the sacred 
writers, he presented in this exercise a most striking 
contrast to that stiffness and formality so common 
among those who, to use his own language, instead of 
praying, " make a prayer." He has left a delightful 
essay, which, were it not for its length, we should 
copy on the question, " "What are the principal excel- 
lences which should be cultivated, and the defects 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



255 



which should be avoided by ministers of the Gospel 
in the performance of their public devotional exer- 
cises ? " We commend this essay to the study of the 
young minister, and regret the less that from its 
length we cannot copy it entire, because from the 
memoir before us we are enabled to gather the secret 
of his peculiar felicity in this part of divine service. 
It was by his uninterrupted daily retired practice that 
he became so skillful and prevailing a pleader with 
his God. The essay alluded to unfolds the theory ; 
his closet, the practical secret of his greatness in this 
respect. 

Another element of his character, to which we have 
indeed already briefly adverted, was the consistent 
uniformity of his conduct. He never forgot, under 
whatever circumstances he might be placed, that he 
was an embassador for Christ. The most worldly- 
minded stranger could not be in his company for ever 
so short a time without being aware that he was in 
the presence of a man of God. And in all this there 
was nothing like austerity, or anything that at all 
savored of that pharisaic haughtiness which seems to 
say, Stand by, for I am holier than thou. It was a 
happy union of Christian humility always ready to 
impart, and a childlike docility ever willing to receive 
instruction. His eloquence in the pulpit spoke not 
more loudly, nor made deeper impressions upon the 
consciences of his hearers, than his conduct out of it. 
He appears to have been deeply imbued with the 
sentiment of a celebrated French prelate, whom, as 
we observe, he quotes upon one occasion. " In vain," 
says the author referred to, " in vain do we preach to 



256 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



our hearers. Our lives, of which they are witnesses, 
are, with the generality of men, the Gospel ; it is not 
what we declare in the house of God ; it is what they 
see us practice in our general demeanor. They look 
upon the public ministry as a stage designed for the 
display of exalted principles beyond the reach of 
human weakness ; but they consider our life as the 
reality by which they are to be directed." " Should 
a physician," says Payson himself in an address to 
his clerical brethren, a should a physician assure a 
number of his patients that their symptoms were 
highly alarming, and their diseases probably mortal, 
and then sit down and converse on trifling subjects 
with an air of quiet indifference or levity, what 
would be their inference from his conduct ? Would 
they not unavoidably conclude either that he did not 
really consider their situation as dangerous, or that 
he was grossly deficient in sensibility and in a proper 
regard to their feelings ? So if our impenitent hear- 
ers see us, after solemnly assuring them from that 
pulpit that they are children of disobedience, children 
of wrath, and momentarily exposed to the most awful 
punishment, mingling in their society with an appar- 
ent unconsciousness of their situation ; conversing 
with earnestness on secular affairs, and seldom or 
never introducing topics strictly religious, or embrac- 
ing private opportunities to warn them of their dan- 
ger, what must they suppose ? If they reflect at all, 
must they not unavoidably conclude either that we 
do not believe their situation to be such as we have 
represented it, or that we are totally devoid not only 
of benevolence, compassion, and religious sensibility, 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



257 



but even of tlie common feelings of humanity ? It 
is needless to remark, that either conclusion would 
be far from producing favorable ideas of our sincerity 
or ministerial faithfulness. If, then, we wish that 
such ideas should be entertained by our people, we 
must convince them by our conduct that we never 
forget our character, our duty, or their situation." 

Mr. Payson's pastoral labors did not at all interfere 
with his pulpit duties. He was in the habit of preach- 
ing, or doing what was at least as laborious, six nights 
in a week. Some definite idea of the amount of 
these labors may be gathered from the fact, that he 
was confined during the whole course of his ministry 
to one and the same people, and that most of his ser- 
mons were written out at full length. This was not, 
indeed, his invariable practice, as he sometimes pre- 
pared in his study merely the outline of his discourses ; 
and he has left, in a letter to a friend, this memorable 
observation : " I find that when any good is done, it 
is my extempore sermons which do it." 

We had designed giving some extracts from the 
volumes of his sermons before us, but our limits for- 
bid, and a few general observations upon the peculiari- 
ties of his style must bring this article to a close. 

The discourses, it will be remembered, were not 
written for the press, but were selected from his man- 
uscripts after his decease, and published for the bene- 
fit of his widow, and children. They, of course, have 
none of them the advantage of the author's finishing 
polish. For ourselves, however, we confess they are 
the more valuable on this account. There is a fresh- 
ness and a vigor about many of them, a directness of 
17 



258 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



aim, ana an apparently studied absence of ornament, 
that involuntarily remind the reader of the writings 
of Wesley. His favorite mode of dividing his sub- 
jects, and in which he excels, is what is termed that 
of continued application. Many of his discourses 
resemble throughout a continued and well directed 
fire from a battery of heavy artillery. All his ser- 
mons are remarkable, to a greater or less extent, for 
the unity of design by which they are characterized. 
In each of them he sets before his hearers one object, 
which is never lost sight of from the commencement 
to the close ; and instead of frittering away his 
energy, and giving in every sermon an epitomized 
body of divinity, as the manner of some is, he is sat- 
isfied to " make out what he takes in hand ;" showing 
in different points of light, and corroborating by the 
strongest arguments, the specific doctrine of the te^t, 
or the peculiar topic under consideration. In his 
style there is none of the stateliness of Foster, the 
gorgeousness of Chalmers, the grandeur of Hall, or 
the magnificence of Watson ; and equally distant is 
it, on the other hand, from the ruggedness of Butler, 
the verbosity of Leighton, the dryness of Blair, and 
the egotism of Finney. His manner is easy, unre- 
strained, natural; apparently more careful about 
what he says than how he says it ; nor by any means 
destitute of ornament, but giving ample evidence 
that ornament is never introduced for its own sake. 
There are, to be sure, faults that may be discovered 
by the eye of the critic, and some that will not escape 
the casual reader ; verbal inaccuracies, trifling inele- 
gances, complicated sentences. What then ? We 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



259 



are not in the humor to point them out. There are 
specks in the sun. To many of the doctrines advanced 
in the volumes before us we are, of course, opposed, 
and probably always shall be ; but while we feel sat- 
isfied with the correctness of our own creed, we are 
perfectly willing that those who differ from us should 
be satisfied with theirs. It has never yet been our 
fortune to meet an individual converted from one to 
the other of the great divisions of the Christian family 
by the religious polemics of the day. We are willing 
patiently to await that hour when ourselves and our 
opponents shall no longer see through a glass darkly. 
We are content to differ here, because we know that 
there we shall see as we are seen, and know as we are 
known. Now we are distinguished by different 
names, ranged under various banners. Then there 
will be one fold and one Shepherd, and all the 
disciples shall be one with Christ as he is one with 
the Father. 



260 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



HOMILETICS. 



Many and various have been the attempts to de- 
fine eloquence ; but widely as philologists differ in 
their definitions of the word, true eloquence is never 
mistaken, and always appreciated. A counterfeit 
may deceive for a season ; fustian and bombast may 
be imposed for a while on a part of the community ; 
but the genuine coin carries with it intrinsic evidence 
of its value, and real eloquence passes current every- 
where and at all times. 

It matters not, therefore, whether, with Isocrates, 
- we call eloquence the power of persuading ; or, with 
Aristotle, the power of inventing that which is per- 
suasive. Whether, with Cicero, we say that eloquence 
is speaking in a persuasive manner ; or, with Quinc- 
tilian, that it is the science of speaking well. Nor 
yet, to come down to modern times, is it of much 
consequence, whether we take Dr. Campbell's defini- 
tion, and say that eloquence is the art whereby the 
speech is adapted to produce the speaker's end ; or, 

* 1. Lectures on Homiletics and Preaching, and on Public Prayer; 
together with Sermons and Letters. By Ebenezer Porter, D.D., 
President of the Theological Seminary, Andover. 8vo. Andover and 
New York. 1834. 

2. Lectures on Eloquence and Style. By Ebenezer Porter. D.D.. 
late President of the Theological Seminary, Andover. 8vo. Andover 
and New York. 1836. 



HOMILETICS. 



261 



with a recent lecturer on the subject, who has acquired 
some reputation, insist upon it, that eloquence is sim- 
ply speaking out, because, forsooth, it is derived from 
two Latin words bearing that signification. 

It were an easy task to show wherein each of these 
definitions is defective, but not so easy to give one 
that shall not be liable to the same or similar objec- 
tions. Specially would it savor of presumption to 
attempt this, when it may be fairly questioned wheth- 
er each successive definition is not more defective 
than its predecessor. 

Nor is it only by the enlightened and the educated 
that eloquence i§ understood and its claims appre- 
ciated. It arrests the attention of the ignorant, and 
even the untaught children of the wilderness confess 
its power. It is potent, nay, omnipotent, so far as 
anything human may claim that attribute for good 
or for evil. The pages of all history, sacred and pro- 
fane, are full of its achievements. 

History, moreover, and the biography of eloquent 
men, throw much light on the question, if they do 
not settle it, whether eloquence is an acquired art or 
a natural gift ; for even those who hold to the latter 
of these opinions must admit that patient study and 
persevering toil have accomplished much where 
nature had done but little. Nor will it be denied, 
that although an individual may have a natural 
genius for eloquence, as some have by nature a taste 
for painting or music ; in the one case as in the other, 
perfection is, and can only be, the result of well 
directed and unceasing effort. 

It would therefore seem to be a ready inference 



262 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



that from Christians, and especially from the Christian 
ministry, the eloquence of the pulpit should receive 
a high degree of attention, and that its study, and 
everything likely to promote it, should be sedulously 
fostered and encouraged. This, therefore, is our 
present object ; not so much formally to review the 
works named at the head of this article, as to call to 
this subject the attention of our younger brethren in 
the ministry, to arouse the energies of Christ's em- 
bassadors, and to urge upon those whom the great 
Head of the Church has called to this responsible 
duty, the absolute necessity of studying to show them- 
selves approved unto God, workmen that need not to 
be ashamed. 

The object of the pulpit orator, whether we con- 
sider his authority, his message, or his responsibility, 
is paramount to all others. He is called and sent 
forth by the great Governor of the universe: the 
message which he bears is his ; to him is he account- 
able for the manner in which he proclaims it. It is 
true, that no man is answerable for talents with 
which he has not been endowed. True, also, that the 
minister of Christ is not responsible for want of suc- 
cess in his efforts to win souls. But it is equally true 
that the great Head of the Church will hold that 
man guilty whose talents have not been improved as 
they might have been, and whose efforts have not 
been proportioned to the magnitude and difficulty of 
the work assigned him. It will admit an argument, 
too, whether, in most cases, the inefficacy of the Gos- 
pel be not owing^ to the inefficiency of the preacher. 
That Gospel an inspired apostle declares to be the 



HOMILETICS. 



263 



power of God. Skill to wield that power, like skill 
in any other pursuit, is to be obtained only by study 
and perseverance. 

There are indeed many persons, and some too of 
unquestioned piety, who, although they hang with 
breathless silence on the lips of the eloquent preacher, 
yet scoff at the very idea of a man's studying to be- 
come eloquent ; it is associated in their minds with 
irreverence to the Holy Ghost, and with the justly 
dreaded consequences of a man-made ministry. It 
would be well for the young preacher, before allow- 
ing opinions of this nature to influence his conduct, 
to gauge the intellectual caliber from which they 
issue, for, although he may not despise one of Christ's 
little ones, it is nowhere enjoined on him to be gov- 
erned by the prejudice of the weak or the caprice of 
the ignorant. It is unworthy the character of a 
Christian minister to be thus influenced. It is still 
more so for him to appear to be thus influenced when 
in reality he is not. This superadds the guilt of hy- 
pocrisy to actual degradation ; as is sometimes pain- 
fully exhibited by his conduct who, feeling the 
necessity of having before him in the pulpit a brief 
skeleton of his sermon, attempts carefully to conceal 
it from his hearers. If it is wrong for him to have 
his notes before him, how dare he bring them into 
the sacred desk i If it is not wrong, as evidently it 
cannot be, why should he soil his conscience by an 
effort to conceal them, or risk his reputation by being 
detected in that which he wishes to conceal, and of 
which, by natural consequence, his hearers will infer 
that he is ashamed I 



264 



BEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



Of those, too, who are opposed to the labor and study 
that are by others deemed essential to the formation 
of the pulpit orator, not a few give evidence that 
their opposition is rather theoretical than real. They 
have no objections to the efforts of the young minis- 
ter, so far as they are directed to the attainment of a 
knowledge of English grammar ; they would have 
him speak correctly ; they would be shocked if his 
gestures were awkward, and his manner so uncouth 
as to be repulsive to the man of refinement, or a just 
subject of ridicule to the young and the gay. And 
for a very good reason. In the ordinary course of 
Providence, the labors of such a man could not be 
beneficial to many who, under other circumstances, 
might be induced attentively to listen, resolutely to 
decide, and eventually to throw into the right scale 
the weight of sanctified intelligence. 

But they ask, What has human learning to do with 
the conversion of the sinner ? The question is often 
put, and in a tone as if the only answer that can be 
given must set at rest forever, not only the question 
relative to theological seminaries, but also that rela- 
tive to systematic training and study of every kind 
for the service of the sanctuary. 

It is easy to ask questions. Might we be pardoned 
for the presumption we could ask another, which, 
indeed, is not another, but the same in a different 
garb : to wit, What has preaching itself to do with 
the conversion of the sinner ? It is, confessedly, only 
a means to an end ; a means, we readily admit, de- 
vised by God himself to effect this object. But still, 
if the Almighty were so disposed, it might be dispensed 



HOMILETIOS. 



265 



with, and the work of conversion be effected in some 
other way. 

Precisely so with human learning ; with diligent 
culture and patient mental discipline. They are 
means to an end ; and other things being equal, the 
success of the preacher will be proportionate to the 
attention given to these matters. Other things, we 
say, being equal ; for it is not pretended that all the 
science in the world, although its possessor spake 
with the tongue of an angel, can be a substitute for 
genuine piety. Our meaning may be illustrated by 
supposing the case of two ministers of Christ, equal 
in piety, in zeal for the advancement of God's glory, 
and in natural gifts. In the one, these endowments 
have been cultivated with assiduity ; in the other, to 
a great extent, neglected. Is it not self-evident that 
the former will be a more successful and therefore a 
more useful man than the latter ? 

We may carry the illustration still further, and 
suppose these men to be equals in their knowledge of 
divine things, and of the revealed plan of salvation, 
as well as in zeal and personal piety. The only dif- 
ference shall be, that the one has acquired in addi- 
tion the graces of a pleasing and winning eloquence ; 
and just in proportion to his superiority in hringing 
forth things new and old from a treasury no better 
furnished than that of the other, will be his higher 
relative standing in the Church and his greater influ- 
ence over his fellow-men. 

It is exceedingly important that it be borne in 
mind here, that in both the cases supposed we take 
men who are not only of unquestioned piety, but who 



266 



KE VIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



have been actually called by the great Head of the 
Church to the work of the ministry. Both these, 
piety and a call from Heaven, the latter no less than 
the former, are indispensable ; and while it is unques- 
tionable that none but those who have passed from 
death unto life are ever called of God, as was Aaron ; 
it is with us equally certain that every religious man 
is not thus called, and that even depth of piety is 
not to be taken as sufficient evidence of such call. 

It is on this point that our Church has taken a de- 
cisive stand. She is jealous of the ark of God ; and 
much as she desires to see her standard-bearers thor- 
oughly furnished for their great work, educated and 
fully armed for the contest to which they are to lead 
the sacramental host, she has hitherto firmly refused 
her sanction to the establishment of theological semi- 
naries for the instruction of men who may be called 
to this office. In whatever light this subject appears 
to our brethren of sister Churches, to us it has too 
much the appearance of usurping the prerogative of 
God ; of manufacturing rather than educating minis- 
ters. It seems to us an exceedingly easy thing to 
persuade men who have been educated theologically, 
who have listened to the lectures of the professor, 
who have passed through the prescribed course, and 
who can write sermons secundum artem • an exceed- 
ingly easy thing, we say, to persuade such that God 
has called them, and perhaps nothing but the light 
of eternity will disclose their error, and reveal in its 
full extent the mischievous consequences of that error. 

But this is a very different thing from educating 
men after the Church has received satisfactory evi- 



HOMILETICS. 



267 



denee that they are called to the ministry ; and the 
time is not far distant, we feel warranted from the 
signs of the times to predict, when suitable provision 
will be made for this object ; whether by the exten- 
sion of our literary institutions already in existence, 
or by the establishment of theological schools for this 
special purpose, time and the wisdom of the consti- 
tuted authorities of the Church will determine. 

In the mean while, let not our younger brethren 
already in the field imagine that because the warn- 
ing voice of their fathers, venerable alike for age and 
wisdom, has been lifted up against the unhallowed 
attempts of men to make ministers, and against the 
presumption of thrusting unsanctified learning into 
the sacred desk, that therefore the Church does not 
need and expect the development of their gifts, as 
well as graces, to the greatest possible extent. Let 
them not listen to the sneers of the ignorant against 
books and against study, as if the time thus spent 
were wasted. They will, doubtless, meet with such 
among the people ; perhaps even among the ministry. 
A jibe of this kind from his colleague and senior in 
office paralyzed for a while the efforts of Adam 
Clarke, as he tells us in his biography. It came near 
quenching forever that taper light which afterward 
blazed like a sun in the moral firmament, and shed 
its radiance over both hemispheres. 

The man was an ignoramus : one of that class, 
unfortunately, not yet extinct, who are always self- 
sufficient and perfectly self-satisfied. From such the 
young preacher will receive, as in the case before us, 
warnings against spiritual pride and against devoting 



268 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



Lis time to literary attainments. He will hear the 
truism from the Discipline of the Church quoted : 
Gaining knowledge is a good thing, but saving souls 
a better ; he will be reminded, possibly, of the re" 
mark of Paul to the Corinthians : " Knowledge puff- 
eth up, but charity edifieth." These may be urged in 
such a way as to give countenance to the idea that 
the Discipline and the most learned of the apostles 
intended that ministers of Christ, the teachers of the 
Church, should keep themselves ignorant, in order 
that they may edify others and be successful in their 
office. 

Perhaps it needs not, however, that we do more 
than merely hint at these things. Certainly we shall 
not undertake to defend Paul or the excellent Disci- 
pline of our Church from a charge of pleading in 
behalf of ignorance. On his colleague, and that col- 
league equally with himself, under the inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost, the great apostle enjoined the neces- 
sity of his giving attendance to reading ; and the Dis- 
cipline, in language that appears to us something 
more than advisory, directs those who have no taste 
for reading and cannot or will not contract a taste 
for it, to return to their former employment. The 
Church here seems to have taken the high ground, 
and we have no doubt of its being correct and scrip- 
tural, that men who will not study to improve them- 
selves, give evidence thereby that God has not called 
them to the ministry. Else why does she say, The 
Church can do without you ; go home to your shops 
or your farms ? 

We have already hinted at the importance, when 



HOMILETICS. 



269 



estimating advice, of considering the source whence 
it comes. No one would think of listening to the 
counsel of a wicked man on the subject of personal 
piety. No one ought to heed the opinions of a will- 
ingly ignorant person on the subject of education. 

That learning fosters pride, is a mischievous and a 
wicked dogma. It is directly opposite to truth. It 
owes its origin and its prevalence, where it does yet 
prevail, to the pedantic airs and consequential bear- 
ing of smatterers and pretenders. Impostors and 
empirics are found in every profession, and the quack 
theological, with its various varieties, is a genus of 
which specimens may yet be found. Such may de- 
ceive for a while by the appearance of profound 
erudition, and some who look only at the surface, are 
led to attribute their overweening arrogance and con- 
ceit, their puppyism we had almost said, to that 
learning which they do not possess, and to that edu- 
cation which they never had. But the vail is very 
thin. Men of sense see through it. Even the unlet- 
tered multitude are beginning to attribute ignorance 
where conceit appears, and to consider modesty, as it 
really is, the infallible test of the enlightened and 
well-informed. 

" I am not competent," said a certain honest- 
hearted class-leader, " to form an opinion of the 

Hebrew quotations with which Mr. interlards 

his sermons ; but I should like him better if he talked 
less about himself, and spoke a little better grammar." 
It was a bitter sarcasm ; its bitterness arose from its. 
justness. 

Indeed, we are not sure that it would be going too 



270 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



far to say, not only that the truly learned man is 
always modest, but that his modesty will be in direct 
proportion to his attainments. The further he ad- 
vances the larger appears the still undiscovered field 
before him, just as the extent of surrounding darkness 
is increased by the magnitude and brilliancy of the 
light that is held up in the midst of it. While the 
pretender is using every art to push himself into 
notice, and signally failing in every such attempt, the 
truly learned man seeks not to display either himself 
or his attainments. Circumstances may for a season 
keep him in the shade ; but he pursues his onward 
course, assured that his industry will be appreciated, 
and that the moral power he is acquiring by dili- 
gent mental culture will he called forth and will he 
felt. 

The argument against a learned ministry, that is 
drawn from the conduct of the Lord Jesus in the se- 
lection of his first disciples, is specious, and deserves 
a passing notice. It is an unquestionable fact that 
the Saviour overlooked the educated doctors and 
learned scribes of the day, and made choice of men 
whose names were unknown in the circles of philoso- 
phy. In this, not less than in other instances, he 
evinced his wisdom. The twelve had not, as the 
prominent men of the various sects and schools would 
have had, to unlearn and to forget the great mass of 
solemn fooleries and frivolous conceits which consti- 
tuted their science, falsely so called. This, difficult 
as the task would have been, must have been done as 
a preparative to the reception of his divine instruc- 
tions, and is sufficient to account for his conduct, had 



HOMILETICS. 



271 



lie been merely a philosopher seeking to establish a 
new sect. 

But he had a higher object. It was to leave behind 
him conclusive evidence of the fact that he was a 
teacher come from God : that, in his own language, 
he was " one with the Father," the great fountain of 
all light and wisdom. Hence it came to pass, as 
doubtless foreseen and intended by himself, that after 
his ascension, when his disciples proclaimed boldly 
the doctrines he had taught them, and preached the 
truths he had revealed, the multitude " took know- 
ledge of them that they had been with Jesus." List- 
ening to their teaching, so infinitely superior in 
style and matter to any that they ever before heard ; 
to the majestic conceptions of the Deity, and the 
overwhelming ideas of the eternal world which they 
unfolded, little was needed to impress upon the mul- 
titude the fact that none but a divine teacher could 
thus have instructed such men. Beholding the light 
shed upon the moral darkness of the world by the 
" unlearned " disciples, many, from that fact alone, 
were doubtless induced to look up themselves to the 
Sun of Righteousness from whom that light had been 
so clearly and so wonderfully reflected. 

But the disciples were very far from being in real- 
ity either unlearned or ignorant. For the great object 
to which they were set apart, they were better edu- 
cated than any men have been since the apostolic age; 
better than any may ever hope to be. They were 
three years in the theological school of Christ ; re- 
ceiving daily instruction, both theoretical and practi- 
cal, from the Great Teacher himself; from him who 



272 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 



" spake as never man spake." A very small portion 
of his lectures on the peculiar duties of his embassa- 
dors has come down to us ; but from the portion with 
which it has pleased the Holy Spirit to favor us, as 
well as from other considerations, it is evident that 
Christ's scholars must have been well and thoroughly 
instructed. 

In addition to these qualifications, moreover, lest 
by any means they might forget what they had once 
learned, as they were men of like frailty with our- 
selves, he left them the assurance that after his de- 
parture the Holy Ghost should not only be sent from 
the Father in his name, but, said he, " He shall bring 
all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have 
said unto you." The unqualified language of this 
promise discountenances the idea that it had reference 
merely to the inspiration necessary to enable them to 
hand down to posterity a correct and faithful history 
of his life and sufferings. It implied,, also, that at all 
times they should have a perfect recollection of the 
instructions he had given them relative to the truths 
he taught, and to the manner in which he would have 
them teach. 

The memorable events of the Day of Pentecost, 
familiar as they are to every reader, must also be 
adverted to when considering the qualifications of 
the apostles. The gift of tongues which they then 
received, and by which they were enabled, not only 
to understand foreign languages, but to converse 
intelligibly with men " of every nation under heav- 
en," filled the minds of the vast multitude that had 
assembled with astonishment and awe. It would be 



HOMILETICS. 



273 



an exceedingly difficult task to frame an argument 
against the necessity of high ministerial acquirements 
from the promise of Christ to his first disciples, or 
from the remarkable fulfillment of that promise to 
which we have just alluded. On the contrary, their 
whole history may be urged with great force as an 
unanswerable argument for diligent study on the part 
of successors of the apostles after they have been 
called to that sacred office ; and there is something 
more than a fancied resemblance between the disci- 
ples of Christ and those to whom we more particu- 
larly address ourselves in the present article. 

Like them, the younger years of the great majority 
of those now in our itinerant ranks were spent in 
daily toil and honest industry. Like them, many 
left their all at the summons of the Master's voice. 
With constitutions unimpaired by the confinement of 
college walls or undue devotion to the midnight oil 
in their youthful days, they are strong to labor and 
to endure fatigue, mental as well as bodily. The 
health and vigor thus acquired, and the practical 
knowledge of human nature, the knowledge of men 
rather than of things, obtained in their several voca- 
tions, have laid a broad foundation on which may be 
erected a glorious superstructure of really useful 
knowledge. 

These are considerations by no means to be over- 
looked or undervalued. Even in the limited circle 
of our own acquaintance, we could point to some 
who, although well versed in the literature of Greece 
and Rome, and competent to read and comment upon 

the sacred canon in the original Hebrew, are yet as 

18 



274 



BE VIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ignorant as little children of human nature, of man 
as he really is. They live in an ideal world ; they 
know a great deal, but the world is little the better 
for it. So, too, many a learned divine looks back 
with unavailing regret upon the fatal errors into 
which he was led by youthful emulation ; his intellect 
is well furnished, but his physical powers are enfee- 
bled ; his mind is sound, but his constitution is 
broken. Gladly, were it possible, would he to-day 
exchange all his hard-earned knowledge for the elas- 
tic step and buoyant spirits of him who last year left 
his plowshare in the furrow or his net upon the 
beach, that he might follow in the footsteps of his 
Master, and seek the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel. 

And why would he do this ? Because he has 
learned to look upon his scientific attainments as of 
little value? Because he would be content to be 
ignorant if he might have health ? No, indeed : 
having tasted the sweets of knowledge and reveled 
in the enjoyments of literature, it is impossible for 
him to choose ignorance for its own sake. He would 
have health, and the restoration of his corporeal fac- 
ulties, that he might begin anew to feed the flame ; 
that from the sad lessons experience has taught him, 
he might pour in the oil in such a manner as not 
again to endanger the safety of the vessel. In a 
word, that he might occupy precisely that position in 
which the majority of the junior ministers of our 
Church are now placed; and with a sound body and 
vigorous constitution, follow out that course of patient 
and persevering study, while engaged in the active 



HOMILETICS. 



275 



labors of the ministry which we are aiming to enforce 
upon their attention. 

Let it not be supposed that we are ignorant of the 
obstacles to be encountered by the young Methodist 
preacher, or of the difficulties in his way to the at- 
tainment of suitable qualifications for his great work. 
On the contrary, because we do know these things 
we thus write ; and it is possible, that in noticing a 
few of these hinderances, we shall hint at some that 
have not occurred even to the mind of the itinerant 
student himself. 

The most common and, at the same time, the most 
absurd reason that is offered for neglecting study, is 
a want of opportunity. Circuits are sometimes large, 
appointments to preach are numerous, and a great 
deal of pastoral visiting is necessary. These things 
certainly must be attended to, but we have never yet 
met with an instance where these duties were so en- 
grossing as to deprive a man of as much time as he 
ought to devote to study. It is, moreover, an obser- 
vation founded on experience, that, as a general thing, 
the most studious and persevering ministers are those 
who while doing this have not left the other undone ; 
giving abundant evidence that there is nothing incom- 
patible in the union of the characters of the faithful 
pastor and the diligent student. Indeed, it is lament- 
able to think for how many wasted hours even min- 
isters of Christ are accountable ; in how many 
instances He who sees the heart knows that the plea 
of want of time is, in truth, nothing but want of 
inclination. Take the man who has so often quieted 
his conscience by this excuse, that he now believes it 



276 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



himself ; place him where he shall be free from every 
other care and exempt from every other duty, set 
him down in a comfortable study and surround him 
with a spacious library of the best books on every 
subject ; let him have an easy rocking chair withal ; 
and the great probability is, that he will do every- 
thing else but study / and that he will come forth at 
the end of the year quite as great a novice as when 
he entered. By diligent redemption of time and un- 
wearied husbandry of opportunity, there is no circuit 
the duties of which are so incessant as not to leave 
at the absolute disposal of the preacher as much 
time in the course of the year as is generally spent 
in study by the students during the same period at a 
college or theological seminary. It is true, he may 
not have this time in an unbroken series, or always 
at the most convenient seasons ; but let any one make 
the calculation, on the supposition that he was de- 
termined to acquire useful knowledge, of how many 
hours he might save from sleep, and how many he 
might gain by punctuality, and how many might be 
redeemed by abstaining from every frivolous and 
unnecessary pursuit, and his own arithmetic will 
startle him, and bear us out fully in the above 
position. 

Of very little more weight is the plea sometimes 
urged of inability to obtain the necessary books. 
The amount of money actually received by Method- 
ist preachers is, indeed, in many places, pitifully 
small ; but, by the admirable economy of our Church, 
just in proportion to his fidelity to the duty enjoined 
upon him of circulating the publications of our own 



HOMILETICS. 



277 



press, will be, if lie is so disposed, the enlargement 
of his own library. The possession merely of a great 
many books, is not an object of so much importance 
as is by some imagined. A man may own a great 
many volumes, while of the contents of a single one 
he is not thoroughly master. 

The selection of works suitable for the study of a 
young minister is a matter of great importance. It 
depends so much on his previous habits and attain- 
ments, that it is impossible to prepare a catalogue 
that would not, on the one hand, contain works be- 
yond the present ability of some to read with profit ; 
or, on the other, omit volumes that would be of 
essential service to those further advanced. The 
theological student must, in a great degree, be gov- 
erned in this matter by his own good sense ; aided, 
as he may generally be, by the advice of judicious 
friends. 

A few remarks on this topic such as will commend 
themselves to the reader's own judgment, are all that 
may be ventured in the present article. 

And, first, it will be seen at once, that no man is 
w r orthy the name of a Methodist preacher who is not 
thoroughly versed not only in the system of revealed 
truth as held by the generality of evangelical denom- 
inations, but especially with those peculiarities by 
which the Church of his choice is distinguished. 
There is no scarcity of standard works, from element- 
ary treatises up to logical and profound dissertations 
on these subjects. There is no good reason why any 
Methodist preacher should be without them; and 
absolutely no excuse for his being ignorant of their 



278 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



contents. There would be certainly a great advanfc 
age to the young minister, as well as a saving of 
time, if there were among us a school for the proph- 
ets, where he might hear these things from the lips 
of the living lecturer, and receive that direction and 
counsel relative to his theological and literary studies 
which his peculiar circ amstances require. The Church 
will see this, and act; our successors will reap the 
benefit ; and, in the mean time, the ministry of the 
present age must aim, by their own efforts, to supply 
the deficiency, each for himself. 

Another indispensable qualification is, a knowledge 
of the language in which he is to preach ; a familiar 
acquaintance with the strength, beauty, and peculiar 
idioms of the English tongue. It is perfectly pre- 
posterous for any man to waste his money and his 
time in purchasing and poring over grammars and 
lexicons of foreign languages, until he has acquired 
sufficient knowledge of his own to speak and write it 
with purity and precision. Then he may soar away 
into the classic regions of the ancients ; then let him 
slake his thirst at the fountain head of the living 
oracles. But not till then. For while it is indisput- 
able that his mind may be replenished and expanded 
by an acquaintance with the writings of the ancients, it 
is also equally clear, that his only medium of commu- 
nicating the results of this study must be the common 
language of his hearers ; and that in order to arrest 
their attention, he must be able to present his thoughts 
in language that will not only command the attention 
of the ignorant and uneducated, but in such as will 
not shock the intelligent and the well informed. 



HOMILETICS. 



279 



There are more or less of such m almost every relig- 
ious congregation of the present day. 

We were present once at a meeting where every 
feeling of solemnity was absolutely overpowered by 
the ludicrous blunder of one who was called on to 
lead the devotions. He told us, designing doubtless 
to improve on that passage in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles where it is said that prayer was wont to be made 
by the side of a certain river, that the place where 
we then were was a place where prayer was much 
wanted to be made. But this was not so bad as an 
example quoted from the Christian Observer by Dr. 
Porter in one of his lectures on style : " A preacher 
in discoursing on that text, Write, Messed are the 
dead that die in the Lord, made this observation : 
1 There is a right blessedness, and a wrong blessed- 
ness, and departed saints are right blessed, that is, 
truly blessed.' A striking proof," subjoins the Chris- 
tian Observer, u how desirable it is that public teach- 
ers should be able not only to read and write, but 
also to SPELL." 

The choice of suitable subjects for pulpit discus- 
sion, the best method of arrangement, and the man- 
ner most likely to produce the designed effect, are 
topics to which the attention of him whose whole 
business it is to instruct cannot be too forcibly di- 
rected. The age in which we live abounds in models 
for the instruction of the young preacher, and the 
press is constantly teeming with the productions of 
profound research and impassioned eloquence. The 
difficulty is not, as we have intimated above, that 
there is any scarcity of suitable works of this kind, 



280 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



but in directing the attention of those who are not 
cursed with a superabundance of this world's wealth 
to such as will be most beneficial in their peculiar 
circumstances. 

From the volumes named at the head of this arti- 
cle, much valuable instruction may be derived. They 
are written in a clear and pleasing style, and embody 
the results of much study and practical experience. 
Bating an unnecessary fling here and there at Ar- 
minianism, but with which we are not disposed to 
cavil, coming, as it does from a Calvinistic instructor, 
they may be confidently recommended to the study 
of young ministers of every sect. 

Two thoughts suggested by a review of our preced- 
ing remarks may be here added on the subject of the 
selection of suitable books. The one is, that with 
the exception of mere works of reference, such as 
concordances, for instance, it is unwise for a minister 
to lumber the shelves of his library with books that 
he does not intend to study. His time may be better 
employed and his money laid out to better advantage, 
than in the purchase and perusal of works designed 
merely for recreation or literary amusement. His 
leisure would be more profitably spent in composing 
an essay, or writing out a sermon at full length. 

The other thought to which we advert is, a caution 
against rejecting valuable treatises, merely because 
they emanate from those who differ from us on doc- 
trinal points. The bee gathers honey from the poison- 
ous flower ; and it is an old adage, fas est ah hoste 
doceri. Several of the Calvinistic divines of the 
present day, who have been recently endeavoring to 



HOMILETICS. 



281 



throw light on the doctrine of Christian perfection, 
would have escaped the ridiculous position they 
occupy had their attention been directed to and had 
they condescended to study the works of Wesley and 
Fletcher on that subject. 

The frequent changes consequent upon our system 
of itinerancy are, not necessarily indeed, but never- 
theless really, one reason why study is neglected, and 
so many of our teachers are themselves untaught. 
The mind is naturally predisposed to sluggishness 
and inactivity. It requires resolute determination to 
curb its waywardness and to bring it down to patient 
study. Whatever may be the opinion of the thought- 
less, it is hard work to think, and mental labor is 
even more fatiguing than bodily toil. Hence it 
follows that many who have been called to the min- 
istry, after the first year or two, seem disposed to 
study as little as possible ; to get along as easily 
as they can. Instead, therefore, of pursuing a sys- 
tematic course of mental culture and improvement, 
they sink into a state of torpid apathy; reading, if 
they do read, without order, without method, with- 
out design. They pass their year, or two years if 
there is not a remonstrance against their being sent 
back, in preaching over and over again the same 
course of sermons which fear of being rejected on 
their examination induced them to prepare during the 
first two years of their ministry. The pulpit efforts 
of such men have been compared, with as much 
truth as quaintness, to the manna provided for the 
children of Israel in the wilderness, which although 
fresh and wholesome when gathered, yet, when kept 



282 



REVIEWS AXD ESSAYS. 



over, notwithstanding all their care, bred worms and 
stank. There is an air of dishonesty about such con- 
duct that ought to make a Christian minister trem- 
ble; it is a species of imposition upon the people, 
who have a right to expect the best of his intellectual 
efforts, and that he, above all men, will not attempt 
to serve Gcd with that which, having been memorized 
years ago, now costs him nothing. Let the young 
preacher beware of attempting to get along easily. He 
is sent into God's vineyard to labor; and the mere 
repetition of a stale sermon, though he may exert his 
lungs in its delivery, is not labor ; is it mere " bodily 
exercise which profiteth little." 

We would not be understood here to imply that a 
text, because it has been made the subject of a ser- 
mon once, may not be again used by the preacher, 
On the contrary, w^e are not speaking about the text 
at all, but about the discourse founded thereon. 
More labor may be spent, and spent profitably, in 
altering, improving, and remodeling a sermon, than 
it cost in its original composition. We care nothing 
how often the young preacher discourses on the same 
subject, only let him see to it that he neglect not 
suitable care and preparation, and that each succeed- 
ing effort be an improvement on the last in matter 
and in style. When he has gone so far, and arrived, 
in his own opinion, at such a high degree of excel- 
lence that no improvement can be made, it is time 
for him to lay aside that sermon, and to preach from 
that text no longer. 

The approbation and applause of hearers, upon 
whose judgment in other matters the preacher would 



HOMILETICS. 



283 



place no reliance, may sometimes encourage him in 
his neglect of suitable preparation for the pulpit. 
They will tell him, perhaps, that the sermon which 
cost him little or no mental effort was one of his best. 
Predisposed to idleness, flattery of this kind, if heeded, 
will make him a very drone. While he ought to list- 
en attentively to candid criticism, and endeavor to 
profit by judicious advice as to his faults, he has 
something within that will not fail to point out to 
him his excellences without a prompter. It will be 
wise in him to close his ears to the voice of indis- 
criminating commendation, let it come from what 
source it may. It was John Bunyan, if our memory 
serves us, who replied to one who observed in his hear- 
ing that he had preached an excellent sermon, " The 
devil told me that before I came out of the pulpit." 

The example of men who were almost without 
education, and who scarcely gave any attention to 
literary pursuits, and whose labors were, nevertheless, 
owned and blessed of God, is readily urged by those 
who, determined to be ignorant themselves, are seem- 
ingly anxious that others should be so too. But what 
a barefaced and palpable piece of sophistry is this ! 
It assumes, in the first place, what cannot by any 
possibility be proved, that these men would not have 
been more successful in winning souls to Christ if 
they had given more attention to the cultivation of 
their own minds. And what is worse, it seems to 
imply, for here is the whole gist of the argument, 
that their success was in consequence of their igno- 
rance : an absurdity too gross to impose upon any 
man who is not desirous to be imposed upon. It is 



284 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



very evident that the men to whom we have alluded 
(we honor them for their works' sake) were successful, 
not because of the disadvantages under which they 
labored, but in spite of them. The peculiarities of 
the age in which they lived and of the circumstances 
under which they were placed may account, in some 
degree, for their success ; and it will, at least, admit 
of a question whether the same men with the same 
zeal would be equally useful at the present day? 
Ardent piety, there is no doubt, is always more desir- 
able than mere knowledge ; but zeal alone is no equiv- 
alent for the two combined. 

The fact is, the spirit of the times in which we 
live demands high intellectual attainments on the 
part of those who profess to teach. It is not only an 
age of bustle and excitement, but an age of reading. 
Volumes of sermons and of works on practical Chris- 
tianity are published, and circulated, and read. 
They are to be met with, not only in the libraries of 
the higher classes, but on the tables of those in mid- 
dle life. By the praiseworthy exertions of tract 
societies, many of the most powerful and stirring 
appeals that have ever been written are put into the 
hands of the poor and the illiterate. Whatever may 
be the truth, as to the number of real Christians, it 
is beyond controversy that the theory of Christianity 
is now better understood than ever it was in all pre- 
ceding time. The contrast between the dry and cold 
speculations of the learned ministry of a former day, 
and the ardent zeal and fervor of a few who, with 
little attention to the graces of oratory, preached the 
Gospel in the demonstration of the Spirit, tended not 



HOMILETICS. 



285 



less to the success than to the popularity of the lat- 
ter. Kude though they were in speech, it was the 
bread of life they broke to the multitudes who 
thronged around them, forsaking the husks and chaff 
dealt out by those to whom the hungry sheep had so 
long " looked up and were not fed." They had in 
their favor the charm of novelty and an unquestion- 
able air of sincerity and singleness of purpose, which 
atoned for every deficiency, and contrasted wonder- 
fully with the stale and threadbare homilies of the 
head rather than the heart so universally prevalent. 

But that day has gone by. The mass of the com- 
munity understand what practical piety is, and know 
full well what a professed minister of Christ ought 
to be. They will not be satisfied with dull exhibi- 
tions of dry and prosing morality, nor yet with zeal 
and energy in an uncouth garb, when they may have 
them adorned with the drapery of a fascinating elo- 
quence and a polished style. It is perfectly idle to 
say it ought not to be so. We must take men as they 
are, and instead of supposing that anything repulsive 
can attract, avoid, as far as in us lies, everything that 
would repel the man of refined and cultivated intel- 
lect, as carefully as we would avoid offending the 
weak and the uneducated. The ministry demanded 
by the wants of the present age is one that shall not 
only be holy, and fervent, and self-sacrificing, but 
educated, enlightened, and always in advance of the 
surrounding community. Indeed, it may be laid 
down as a rule, admitting of but few exceptions, that 
the preacher will always be in advance of his hear- 
ers ; for if he be not, they, as a general thing, will 



286 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



leave him, and seek that ministry by which not only 
their hearts may be warmed, bnt their minds enlight- 
ened. 

This is trne even of professing Christians, with the 
exception of those who, from conscientious motives, 
consent to sit until a change can be effected, under 
the ministrations of those who cannot teach, because 
they will not learn. So far from piety being all that 
is required of the ministry of the present age, there 
is no more common form of expression, when censure 
is intended with as little harshness as may be, 
"Brother so-and-so is, no doubt, a very good man* 
but — Everybody's experience will bear testimony 
to the truth of this remark. 

Another feature of the present age is, the unblush- 
ing boldness of error, and the ten thousand varying 
shapes which it assumes. Genius, and talent, and 
eloquence are pressed into its service. It is scattered 
by the press, disseminated from the lecture room, and 
instilled by the pulpit. In our own country, where 
the rights of conscience are guaranteed, and free dis- 
cussion is tolerated on almost every topic, it is not to 
be wondered at that its name is legion, and that its 
votaries are many. Now the ministry of Christ have 
been by himself constituted the guardians, as his 
Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Is 
it enough for them to say, the truth is on our side ? 
To fold their arms while error is riding rampant 
through the land, because, forsooth, the old adage 
declares that truth is mighty and that it will prevail! 
Prevail, will she ? What, when her champions lie 
wounded and bleeding by the roadside, because they 



HOMILETICS. 



287 



went forth illy equipped, nay, only half armed for 
the contest ? 

Yes ; the truth will prevail : but God has decreed 
that her triumph shall be brought about by human in- 
strumentality. Her victories are the result of skill and 
energy on the part of her champions : skill to select the 
weapons from her armory and energy to wield them. 

A great deal is said about the beauty and the 
power of simple and unadorned truth by those, who 
at the same time overlook the fact that we are living 
in a world in which truth has had to contend for her 
very existence from the first hour of man's apostasy 
to the present : a world inhabited by men of like 
feelings and dispositions with those who, when the 
Truth embodied appeared among them, instead of 
embracing it, cried out for the scourge and the cross, 
that they might no longer endure his withering 
glance. Men love darkness rather than light, no less 
now than they did in the days of the Saviour ; and 
it is not to be wondered at that error, in her protean 
forms, assumes the garb of fascination, and seeks by 
every allurement to increase the smiles and to per- 
petuate the homage of a world in which her throne 
is erected. To tear off these embellishments, to ex- 
pose sophistry, to chase error through her many wind- 
ings, and to present unpalatable truth in such a man- 
ner as shall induce the carnal mind to listen, and 
listening, to love, this is the work for heaven's ap- 
pointed champions ; a work of constantly increasing 
difficulty, and for the accomplishment of which, with 
the anointing of the Holy Ghost, learning and skill 
and eloquence are requisite. 



288 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



To the ministry of the Methodist Church, espe- 
cially, many arguments may be advanced bearing on 
the importance of this subject. We will merely 
advert to a few, and bring this article to a close. 

The fact that other denominations of the Church 
of Christ are insisting on a higher degree of piety 
and zeal in their ministry as well as suitable literary 
attainments, is an omen of good ; a subject for un- 
feigned rejoicing among all who love the Lord Jesus. 
It might be difficult, logically, to prove, but in our 
minds there is no doubt that this is in a great degree 
owing to a holy emulation caused by the labors and 
the success of the ministry of our Church. Now, 
while we would not have this ardor in any degree 
cooled, nor this zeal one jot abated, we would have 
our ministry able to cope with that of any other 
branch of Christ's Church, in directing that zeal 
according to knowledge, in defending peculiarities of 
doctrine, in influencing, swaying, and moulding the 
public mind. We hold that man unworthy of his 
vocation, we doubt, indeed, whether he has not mis- 
taken his calling, who is willing that the Church of 
which he is a minister should be thrown into the 
background, or should rank anywhere but first in 
its influence, its power, and its success. 

Do we really believe in the peculiarities of our 
creed ? Are we convinced that there is more of truth 
and less of error in the doctrines of our own than in 
those of our sister Churches ? Are we satisfied that 
the " sect everywhere spoken against " is destined to 
embrace every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and 
people, when the millennial reign of Christ shall fill 



HOMILETICS. 



289 



the earth with his glor y ? "We profess all this. That 
we are Methodists, is evidence that such is our belief 
and our expectation ; and can any labor be too great 
or any toil unnecessary that shall tend to enable the 
ministry of our Church to show by their works that 
this is their faith ? 

Again, the tendency of our economy is evidently 
and unavoidably to concentration. Keeping pace 
with the population and losing sight of territorial 
limits, the district becomes a conference ; and what, 
in many instances, was once a circuit, is now the 
boundary of a district. Stations are multiplying 
everywhere ; and within a section of country where 
formerly we could do little more than fire a random 
shot at different places once a month or once in six 
weeks, now, the citadel of error is to be attacked by 
a continued and incessant bombardment. To say 
nothing of the qualifications that are requisite to 
enable our ministry to appear in places like these 
creditably, when compared with the talent and elo- 
quence in the pulpits by which they are surrounded, 
the wants of our own people demand from them 
qualifications that they cannot have without diligent 
study and faithful mental discipline. They cannot 
be satisfied with tedious repetitions and reiterated 
dullness : they will not be satisfied with awkwardness 
or monotony. Hence the anxiety of our people to 
secure the services of such men as they suppose are 
best furnished, intellectually, for the pastoral office, is 
pardonable, nay, praiseworthy. The fact that a man 
is a Methodist minister in good standing, is satisfac- 
tory evidence of his piety ; but they ask, with solici- 
19 



290 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



tude which does them credit, Is he qualified to meet 
the opposition that we have to contend with ? Can 
he feed the lambs of our flock ? Is he able to retain 
our congregations, to withdraw which the efforts of 
our neighbors are skillful and unceasing ? 

It is a question w^hich we do not intend to answer, 
but which we would commend to those who are loudest 
in their denunciations of what is called the " petition- 
ing system," whether, in most instances, that practice 
does not arise, on the part of our people, from a sin- 
cere and ardent desire for the honor and the advance- 
ment of Methodism ? It is a yet graver question, 
and one still more pertinent to the subject before us, 
whether the fault complained of in this respect may 
not be traced to the door of the ministry ? For whom 
do the people petition ? Is there any good reason 
why all may not, in a greater or less degree, acquire 
those qualifications for which the Church asks as a 
favor, while other denominations demand them as a 
right ? In fact, the embarrassments of our executive 
do not arise so much from the number of petitions, 
with which, in some conferences, their tables groan, 
as from the fact that comparatively but a few men 
are petitioned for. 

Here we pause. If the motives urged fail to effect 
the object for which we have written, the fault is not 
in them, but in us. In ourselves, we mean, because 
we have not presented them with sufficient vividness 
and energy; or, in ourselves still, for we are one 
among our brethren, because we will not allow these 
motives to have their due influence. The glory of 
God, and if we have no higher object, even our own 



HOMILETICS. 



291 



interest for this world, as well as for that which is to 
come, demand from every minister of our Church the 
unceasing improvement of the talents committed to 
his stewardship : that Methodism may be urged on 
to the accomplishment of her destiny — the publica- 
tion and the embracement of a feee and a full 
salvation to the ends of the earth. 



292 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING.* 



Memorable in the annals of America is the period 
to which, our attention is directed by the volume 
before us. With much propriety is it called the 
great awakening. Its first dawn may be placed in 
the year 1734, and its meridian splendor in 1740. 
The materials from which our author has drawn are, 
Edwards's " Thoughts on the Revival of Religion 
in New England," and his " Faithful Narrative ;" 
"Whitefield's Life, Journal, and Letters ; Chauncy's 
" Seasonable. Thoughts on the State of Religion in 
New England Trumbull's " History of Connecti- 
cut." Added to these, he has availed himself of many 
pamphlets published during the time referred to 
and gleaned among files of newspapers, preserved in 
the archives of historical and antiquarian societies. 
The volume before us is evidence of great industry ; 
and the Christian public are indebted to the author 
for bringing together a vast amount of facts which 
were scattered over a wide surface, and some of 
which would otherwise have passed into oblivion. 

The first inquiry which naturally suggests itself in 
contemplating the period under consideration, has 

* The Great Awakening. A History of the Revival of Religion in 
the Time of Edwards and Whitefield. By Joseph Tracy. One vol, 
8vo., pp. 433. Boston. New York, and Philadelphia. 1842. 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GKEAT AWAKENING-. 293 

reference to the previous state of the religious world. 
We cannot tell how great was the awakening unless 
we have some idea of the profound slumber into 
which the Christian public had fallen. On this point 
our author is perhaps not so explicit as he might have 
been. We gather, however, from his incidental allu- 
sions and remarks, that Christianity, at the time 
referred to, was in this country little more than a 
name. The all -import ant doctrine of the new birth 
appears to have been entirely lost sight of even by 
the orthodox Congregationalists of ISTew England. 
Water baptism was generally esteemed regeneration, 
and all who had been thus initiated into the visible 
Church were regarded as true members of the flock 
of Christ. The Christian creed was adopted as a 
system in the gross, and not in detail. All who did 
not openly and avowedly renounce it were looked 
upon as disciples; and, provided they fell not into 
gross and scandalous wickedness, were considered as 
in a fair way to the enjoyment of life eternal. Added 
to this, if we take into consideration the favorite 
dogiip, of Calvinism — the perseverance and final 
safety of the saints — then almost universally preva- 
lent, we shall have a fearful view of the state of the 
religious world. Being baptized, they were regener- 
ated ; regenerated, they were, of course, Christians. 
As Christians, they might indeed fall away ; yea, fall 
foully ; but the creed came in, an ignis fatuus, to 
throw light upon their darkness, and all was well. 
They could not fall finally. How simple the process ! 
How grateful to the unrenewed heart ! Baptized, 
regenerated, in Church fellowship, safe. Nor were 



294 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



these isolated cases. This was the general rule; 
others the exceptions. So early as 1707, the " ven- 
erable Stoddard," the grandfather of Edwards, and 
his immediate predecessor at Northampton, published 
a sermon in which he maintained " that the Lord's 
supper is a converting ordinance ;" and a year or two 
after, sent forth his " Appeal to the Learned ; being 
a Vindication of the Right of Yisible Saints to the 
Lord's Supper, though they he destitute of a saving 
work of God's Spirit on their hearts" In this work 
he adduces what he calls, " Arguments to prove that 
sanctifying grace is not necessary in order to a lawful 
partaking of the Lord's Supper." According to 
Trumbull, the opinion was prevalent in Connecticut, 
half a century before the time of Stoddard, that 
" parishes in England, consenting to and continuing 
meetings to worship God, were true Churches ; and 
that members of those parishes, coming into New 
England, had a right to all Church privileges, though 
they made no profession of a work of faith upon 
their hearts. 

One of the unavoidable consequences of this gen- 
eral theory was the induction of unconverted men 
into the ministry. The simple inquiry on this point 
soon became, Has the candidate education and suita- 
ble talents for the work ? This, answered affirma- 
tively, was deemed amply sufficient ; and thus, the 
blind became leaders of the blind. 

Frequent are the allusions made by Whitefield in 
his Journals to the alarming fact that in his day many 
of the ministers of Christ were destitute of saving 
faith, On a certain occasion, he tells us, he was 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GKEAT AWAKENING. 295 

about to preach in the " Old South " at Boston. He 
had selected his subject, but perceiving a great num- 
ber of ministers present, he felt constrained to preach 
from the Saviour's interview with Mcodemus. When 
he came to the words, " Art thou a master in Israel, 
and knowest not these things ? " he says, " The Lord 
enabled me to open my mouth boldly against uncon- 
verted ministers ; to caution tutors to take care of 
their pupils ; and also to advise ministers particularly 
to examine into the experiences of candidates for or- 
dination. For I am verily persuaded the generality 
of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ ; 
and the reason why congregations have been so dead 
is, because they have had dead men preaching to 
them" 

It must not be supposed, however, that there were 
no really converted men in the ministry of that day. 
On the contrary, many were eminent saints of the 
Most High ; and Stoddard was an able minister of 
the New Testament, although his ecclesiastical prac- 
tice was in strange contradiction to the doctrines which 
he preached. In accounting for this inconsistency 
our author refers to what he is pleased to call " a 
silent and gradual increase of Arminianism," and 
betrays great ignorance of those doctrines which Ar- 
minius defended and taught. We say great igno- 
rance. Charity prompts us to attribute the remark 
to no worse cause, although we might with as much 
propriety speak of Calvinism as synonymous with 
fatalism, as baptize the errors of Pelagius with the 
honored name of Arminius. 

A sermon preached and published about this time 



296 



EE VIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



by Gilbert Tennent is remarkable not less for the 
severity of its tone than for the necessity which called 
it forth, and the effects produced by it. It exaspe- 
rated almost to madness those against whom it was 
directed, was widely circulated, and formed a subject 
of discussion for years. Whitefield deemed it an 
unanswerable production. It served, in a great de- 
gree, to open the eyes of the people to the danger of 
an unconverted ministry ; and, in the opinion of our 
author, "to no other human agency, probably, so 
much as to this sermon, is it owing that Presbyterian 
ministers at the present day are generally pious men." 
His subject was, " The danger of an unconverted 
ministry :" the text, Mark vi, 34, "And Jesus, when 
he came out, saw much people, and was moved with 
compassion toward them ; because they were as sheep 
not having a shepherd." We give a few specimens 
as transcribed by our author : 

" But what was the cause of this great, and com- 
passionate commotion in the breast of Christ ? It 
was because he saw much people as sheep not having 
a shepherd. Why, had the people then no teachers ? 
O yes ! they had troops of Pharisee teachers, that 
came out, no doubt, after they had been at the feet 
of Gamaliel the usual time, and according to the acts, 
canons, and traditions of the Jewish Church. But 
notwithstanding the great crowds of these orthodox, 
letter-learned, and regular Pharisees, our Lord laments 
the unhappy case of that great number of people, 
who, in the days of his flesh, had no better guides ; 
because that those were as good as none in our Sav- 
iour's judgment. Although some of the old Pharisee 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GEE AT AWAKENING. 297 

shepherds had a very fair and strict outside, yet they 
were ignorant of the new birth. "Witness Rabbi 
Xicodemus, who talked like a fool about it. The old 
Pharisees, for all their long prayers and other pious 
pretenses, had their eyes, with Judas, fixed upon the 
bag. Why, they came into the priest's office for a 
piece of bread ; they took it up as a trade, and there- 
fore endeavored to make the best market of it they 
could." 

His reasons " why such people who have no better 
than old Pharisee teachers are to be pitied," are 
in very much the same style. " Men," he con- 
tinues, " that do not follow Christ, may fish faithfully 
for a good name, and for worldly pelf ; but not for 
the conversion of sinners to God. Is it reasonable to 
suppose that they will be earnestly concerned for 
others' salvation, when they slight their own ? The 
apostle Paul thanks God for counting him faithful, 
and putting him into the ministry; which plainly 
supposes that God Almighty does not send Pharisees 
and natural men into the ministry ; for how can 
these men be faithful that have no faith ? It is true, 
men may put them into the ministry, through un- 
faithfulness or mistake ; or credit and money may 
draw them ; and the devil may drive them into it, 
knowing, by long experience, of what special service 
they may be to his kingdom in that office ; but God 
sends not such hypocritical varlets." 

To the objection that " Judas was sent by Christ," 
he replied : 

" I fear that the abuse of this instance has brought 
many Judases into the ministry, whose chief desire, 



298 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



like their great grandfather, is to finger the pence, 
and carry the bag. But let such hireling, murderous 
hypocrites take care that they do not feel the force of 
a halter in this world, and aggravated damnation in 
the next." 

Edwards, in his " Faithful Narrative," thus speaks of 
the religious state of the people at Northampton at the 
time of commencing his pastoral care over them : 

" The greater part seemed to be at that time very 
insensible of the things of religion, and engaged in 
other cares and pursuits. Just after my grandfather's 
death, it seemed to be a time of extraordinary dull- 
ness in religion : licentiousness for some years greatly 
prevailed among the youth of the town ; they were, 
many of them, very much addicted to night walking, 
and frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices, 
wherein some by their example exceedingly corrupted 
others. It was their manner very frequently to get 
together, in conventions of both sexes, for mirth and 
jollity, which they called frolics ; and they would 
often spend a greater part of the night in them, 
without regard to any order in the families they be- 
longed to : and indeed family government did too 
much fail in the town." 

Those of whom this language is used were Church 
members ; and we may infer that in places where the 
people were not favored with the piety and zeal of 
such men as " grandfather Stoddard," matters were 
much worse. 

Such, then, was the state of the religious world in 
America at the time referred to ; such the spiritual 
slumber, the lethargy, the death of the Churches from 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 299 

which the celebrated Jonathan Edwards was, under 
God, the instrument of producing a " great awaken- 
ing." The immediate occasion of its commencement, 
according to our author, was a series of sermons on 
the doctrine of justification by faith. "With reference 
to these sermons, Edwards himself says in his " Faith- 
ful Narrative :" 

" Although great fault was found with meddling 
with the controversy in the pulpit, by such a person, 
and at that time, and though it was ridiculed by many 
elsewhere, yet it proved a word spoken in season 
here, and was most evidently attended with a very 
remarkable blessing of Heaven to the souls of the 
people in this town. They received thence a general 
satisfaction with respect to the main thing in ques- 
tion, which they had been in trembling doubts and 
concern about ; and their minds were engaged the 
more earnestly to seek that they might come to be 
accepted of God, and saved in the way of the Gospel, 
which had been made evident to them to be the true 
and only way. And then it was in the latter part of 
December (1734) that the Spirit of God began ex- 
traordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work among 
us ; and there were very suddenly, one after another, 
five or six persons who were to all appearance sav- 
ingly converted, and some of them wrought upon in 
a very remarkable manner." 

From these observations, it seems that the doctrine 
of justification by faith was at that time a novelty ; 
and that it was regarded as dangerous by some, and 
by others as a fit subject for ridicule. It would be an 
interesting question, had we the means satisfactorily 



300 



BEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



to answer it, to inquire how it came to pass that the 
mind of Edwards was led to this cardinal doctrine ? 
He had been at this time several years in the minis- 
try, and it does not appear that previously his own 
attention had been sufficiently turned to this subject 
to make it a theme of pulpit discussion. It will be 
remembered that more than five years previous to 
this, namely, in 1729, the Wesleys, with their asso- 
ciates in England,. obtained the name of Methodists; 
and about the same time, the United Brethren or 
Moravians attracted attention in the same country, 
by their fearless advocacy of the doctrine under con- 
sideration. It is exceedingly probable, therefore, 
that Edwards in America had heard of these things ; 
and although it was the common cant of the day, as 
it is even now, to charge both Methodists and Mora- 
vians with holding the obnoxious doctrine of Armin- 
ianism, meaning by the phrase Pelagianism, yet 
Edwards had sufficient acumen at length to perceive 
that theirs was the true doctrine, and mighty in 
effecting that change of heart which the Scriptures 
enjoin. Indeed, he tells us as much himself. u About 
this time," he says, namely, just previous to the deliv- 
ery of the sermons referred to, u about this time began 
the great noise that was in this part of the country 
about Arminianism, which seemed to appear with a 
very threatening aspect upon the interest of religion." 

" It appeared with a very threatening aspect upon 
the interest of religion ! " No doubt of it. It always 
does, when caricatured into a bugbear by those who, 
in ignorance or willfully, represent it as advocating 
what it expressly condemns. It so happens, more- 



WHITEFIELD AND ' THE GREAT AWAKENING. 301 



over, that the sermons of President Edwards have 
come down to our times, and we have no hesitation 
to declare that those among them which produced the 
greatest effect upon his hearers are, in very truth, 
Arminian ; or, if our brethren hate the phrase more, 
Methodistic. The simple truth is, that at this time 
Edwards materially changed his style of preaching ; 
and instead of treating his hearers to the chilling 
abstractions of predestination, the comforting opiates 
of election, or the lullaby of final perseverance, 
began boldly to offer a free salvation, to magnify the 
atoning merits of Christ, and to insist upon the ne- 
cessity of a knowledge of sins forgiven. We do not 
mean that Edwards abandoned the peculiarity of his 
views, or repudiated his Calvinistic tenets, but simply 
that he kept them in the background, and, as has 
been the case from that day to the present among re- 
vivalists of that order, he began — in the common 
language of the people of his own faith — to preach 
like a Methodist. 

It is worthy of note, too, and a fact which has not 
been prominently brought forward by his biographers, 
that Edwards had some very correct ideas of the glori- 
ous but maligned doctrine of Christian perfection. In 
his own personal narrative we find the following 
remarkable passage : 

" Once as I rode out in the woods in 1737, I had a 
view that, for me, was extraordinary, of the glory of 
the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, 
and his wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet grace 
and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This 
grace, that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared 



302 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



also great above the heavens. The person of Christ 
appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great 
enough to swallow up all thought and conception ; 
which continued, as near as I can judge, about an 
hour, and kept me the greater part of the time in a 
flood of tears, weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of 
soul to be, what I know not how otherwise to express, 
emptied and annihilated ; to lie in the dust, and to 
be full of Christ alone ; to love him with a holy and 
pure love ; to trust in him ; to live upon him ; to 
serve and follow him ; and to he perfectly sanctified, 
and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity" 

There can be no doubt, we think, that at this time 
he was not far from the enjoyment of this great 
blessing. This ardency of soul to be full of Christ 
alone, to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, 
what was it but that hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness which, according to the Saviour's de- 
claration, is the only prerequisite to the enjoyment 
of the fullness of God ? And what hindered ? Evi- 
dently nothing but the writer's own rigid creed, and 
the metaphysical difficulties thrown in his way by his 
own philosophy. 

The awakening spread with rapidity throughout 
Northampton. Worldly business was in a great 
degree neglected, and the inquiry, What must I do 
to be saved ? became general. In about six months 
from its commencement, Edwards reckoned more 
than three hundred converts within the bounds of 
his own parish ; and among them were persons of all 
classes in society, and of all ages, from the infant of 
four years to the old man of threescore and ten. 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 303 

Some of the cases were very remarkable, and as the 
report spread, Edwards tells us, the revival was a 
subject of ridicule for many, while others " seemed 
not to know what to make of it," and " some com- 
pared what we called conversions to certain distem- 
pers." Multitudes, however, who visited the scene 
of these wonders were very differently affected, and 
were themselves awakened and brought to repent- 
ance. These carried with them the hallowed flame 
into the neighboring regions, and, our author con- 
tinues, " In March, 1735, the revival began to 
be general in South Hadley, and about the same 
time in Suffield. It next appeared in Sunderland, 
Deerfield, and Hatfield ; and afterward at West 
Springfield, Long Meadow, and Enfield ; and then in 
Hadley, Old Town, and in Northfield. In Connecti- 
cut, the work commenced in the first parish, in Wind- 
sor, about the same time as at Northampton. It was 
remarkable at East Windsor, and ' wonderful' at 
Coventry. Similar scenes were witnessed at Leba- 
non, Durham, Stratford, Eipton, New Haven, Guil- 
ford, Mansfield, Tolland, Hebron, Bolton, Preston, 
Groton, and Woodbury." 

About this time, under the ministry of Blair, at 
New Londonderry, in Pennsylvania ; and of Gilbert 
Tennent at New Brunswick, in New Jersey, similar 
results were visible. On the arrival of Whitefield 
from the South in November, 1739, he found the way 
of the Lord prepared, and the field indeed white unto 
the harvest. He preached with great success to list- 
ening thousands at nearly all the intermediate places 
until his arrival at Newport, in Rhode Island, on the 



304 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



14th of September, 1740. This was his first visit to 
New England, whither he had come upon the urgent 
solicitation of many of the most eminent ministers 
of the day. The impression that his coming would 
be followed by a great revival of religion appears to 
have been general. " There is even reason to sus- 
pect," says our author, " that the manifestation of a 
revival which was already secretly at work in men's 
hearts, was kept back for several months by the gen- 
eral feeling that it would take place when Whitefield 
came, and not before." Nor were they disappointed. 
Under the labors of this eminent disciple of the Wes- 
leys, the flame spread far and wide throughout New 
England. "Wherever he went he was surrounded by 
listening thousands, the churches were insufficient to 
contain his hearers, and very frequently he had, to 
use his own language, a hill for his pulpit, and the 
heavens for a sounding-board. 

It is not our intention to follow the career of this 
zealous herald of the cross ; but we recommend the 
work named at the head of this article to those who 
are desirous of obtaining a correct knowledge of the 
different fields of his labors, and of the astonishing 
success by which they were owned of God. The 
author has taken great pains to be accurate in his 
statement of facts, and has corrected many errors 
into which previous writers had fallen. As a matter 
of course, he endeavors to inculcate the peculiarities 
of Calvinism; and is exceedingly keen-scented in 
discovering everything that in his opinion savors of 
Arminianism. Yet is he too honest to conceal the 
fact that Whitefield " refrained from preaching the 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 305 

doctrine of election," not indeed because he disbe- 
lieved it, but because he doubted its expediency. 
The same is true of the kindred doctrine of reproba- 
tion. No man in his senses ever deemed it expedient 
to dilate much on that doctrine where sinners were 
anxiously inquiring the way of salvation. 

In the progress of this great and glorious revival 
many things occurred which were a source of grief 
to those engaged in its promotion, and were used as 
arguments against it by those who would not see in 
it the hand of God. Strong cries and groans were 
frequent in the assemblies of the saints. Fainting 
fits were common. Many were thrown into ecstasies, 
and shouted aloud for joy. Some were entranced 
for hours, if not days, and had strange visions of 
the glories of heaven and of Christ. Others in the 
same state declared, when their natural strength 
returned, that they had visited the caverns of the 
damned. We extract a few instances from our author. 
The first is from Whitefield's Journal. It is his own 
account of a sermon preached by him in New York, 
on Sunday, November 2, 1740. He says : 

u After I had begun, the Spirit of the Lord gave 
me freedom, till at length it came down like a mighty 
rushing wind and earned all before it. Immediately 
the whole congregation was alarmed. Shrieking, 
crying, weeping, and wailing were to be heard in 
every corner, men's hearts failing them for fear, and 
many falling into the arms of their friends." 

Again, at Basking Ridge, in New Jersey, on the fol- 
lowing "Wednesday : 

" I had not discoursed long, but the Holy Ghost 
20 



306 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



displayed his power ; in every part of the congrega- 
tion somebody or other began to cry out, and almost 
all melted into tears. A little boy, seven or eight 
years old, began to weep as though his little heart 
would break. Mr. Cross having compassion on him, 
took him up into the wagon, which so affected me 
that I broke from my discourse, and told the people 
the little boy should preach to them ; and that God, 
since old professors would not cry after Christ, had 
displayed his sovereignty, and out of an infant's 
mouth was perfecting praise. God so blessed this, 
that a universal concern fell on the congregation 
again. Fresh persons dropped down here and there, 
and the cry increased more and more." 

The pastors of the First and Second Churches in 
"Wrentham, in giving a more particular account of 
the work of God in that place, observe : 

" There have been not a very few among us, within 
seven or eight months past, that have cried out with 
great agonies and distress, or with high joy on spirit- 
ual accounts, and that in time of religious exercises." 

The Eev. Jonathan Parsons, of Lyme, Conn., was 
one of the most zealous promoters of the revival. 
At his ordination he renounced the Saybrook plat- 
form, and took for his rule " the general platform of 
the Gospel." He had heard of the successful labors 
of Whitefield and Tennent. Unlike many of his 
brethren, he inquired into the matter, and became 
satisfied that the work was of God. His testimony is 
as follows : 

" While I was preaching from Psalm cxix, 59, 60, 
I observed many of the assembly in tears, and heard 



WHITEFIELD AXD THE GREAT AWAKENING. 307 

many crying out in very great bitterness of soul, as 
it seemed then by the sound of voices. When ser- 
mon was over, I could better take notice of the cause ; 
and the language was to this purpose, namely, Alas ! 
I'm undone, I'm undone ! O my sins ! How they 
prey upon my vitals ! What will become of me ? 
How shall I escape the damnation of hell % And 
much more of a like import. It is true, outcries 
were new and surprising at this time ; but knowing 
the terrors of the Lord, I was satisfied that they were 
but what might be reasonably accounted for, if sin- 
ners were under a true sense of their sins, and the 
wrath of a sin-hating God." 

On another occasion, under a sermon from Matt, 
xxiv, 37-39, he says : 

u Many had their countenances changed ; their 
thoughts seemed to trouble them, so that the joints 
of their loins were loosed, and their knees smote one 
against another. Great numbers cried out aloud in 
the anguish of their souls. Several stout men fell as 
though a cannon had been discharged, and a ball had 
made its way through their hearts. Some young 
women were thrown into hysteric fits. The sight and 
noise of lamentations seemed a little resemblance of 
what we may imagine will be when the great Judge 
pronounces the tremendous sentence of - Go, ye 
cursed, into everlasting fire.' " 

The same effects were produced by the preaching 
of Parsons in other places ; for, like Whitefield and 
the Tennents, he itinerated, though not to the same 
extent, from place to place. He appears to have been 
not only zealous, but exceedingly prudent, although 



308 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



many of his brethren in the ministry regarded him 
as a fanatical enthusiast. In a sermon, published by 
him, entitled a " Needful Caution in a Critical Day," 
he endeavored to guard his people against those 
errors, both doctrinal and practical, into which many 
had fallen during the progress of the revival in other 
places ; to warn them, on the one hand, against 
despising or ridiculing the work of grace, because 
some things were new and strange ; and, on the 
other, to caution them against mistaking those disor- 
derly irregularities as an essential part of that work. 
" While you stand amazed," says he, " at the rings 
of the wheels as things too high and dreadful for you ; 
while you know not what to make of the effusions of 
the Holy Spirit, but are blundering at everything 
amiss, where God is working a work of his astonish- 
ing grace before your eyes, which you will not be- 
lieve ; beware lest that come upon you which is 
spoken of by the prophet, 6 Behold, ye despisers, and 
wonder, and perish.' Let me warn and caution the 
children of God," he continues, " that they carefully 
watch against everything in principle and practice 
that has a tendency to bring any blemishes upon the 
work of divine grace, or to open the mouths of gain- 
sayers, and be a stumbling-block in the way of their 
giving credit to the truth of it." 

The Rev. George Griswold, pastor of a church in 
the neighboihood of Parsons, gives substantially the 
same account of what he calls " unusual circum- 
stances," although he was satisfied that " as to the 
substance of it, it was the work of God." u Some," 
says he, " had fits, some fainted, and it was observa- 



WHITE FIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 309 

ble that God made use of the concern in some to 
create a concern in others." 

At Northampton, as might be supposed, under the 
pungent preaching of Edwards, similar scenes were 
very frequent. He says : 

" It was not the manner here to hold meetings all 
night, as in some places, nor was it common to con- 
tinue them very late in the night ; but it was pretty 
often so that there were some so affected, and their 
bodies so overcome, that they could not go home, but 
were obliged to stay all night at the house where they 
were. It was a very frequent thing to see a house 
full of outcries, faintings, convulsions, and such like, 
both with distress, and also with admiration and joy. 
There were some instances of persons lying in a sort 
of trance, remaining for perhaps a whole twenty-four 
hours motionless, and with their senses locked up ; but 
in the mean time under strong imaginations, as though 
they went to heaven and had there a vision of glori- 
ous and delightful objects." 

A remarkable instance is mentioned in the private 
journal of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, of Westborough, 
Mass. We give it in his own words : 

" Mr. James Fay came for me to go and see Isaiah 
Pratt, who lay in a strange condition at his house, 
not having spoke nor been sensible since nine o'clock 
last night. I went to him, and seeing him lie so 
insensible, and his pulse exceeding slow, I advised 
them to send for Dr. Grott, to bleed him ; but sitting 
by him, and rousing him by degrees, he came to. 
Many were present, and were astonished. "When 
he regained his senses, he said he had not been 



310 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



asleep, had seen hell, and seen Christ ; and said Christ 
told him his name was in the book of life," etc. 

But enough of this. Similar scenes have been wit- 
nessed, and the like occurrences have been observed, 
to a greater or less extent, in almost every extensive 
revival of religion. It is an exceedingly difficult 
question to decide how much reliance is to be placed 
on these external manifestations. On the one hand, 
there can be no denial of the fact, that as the wind 
bloweth where it listeth, so the operations of the 
Holy Spirit are not subject to human laws or to be 
controlled by the wisdom of man. On the other 
hand, it is equally clear that human imperfections 
will insensibly mingle with and mar the work of 
grace ; and that many, in such seasons, will run into 
the extremes of fanaticism, and mistake sparks of 
their own kindling for fire from the altar of God. It 
is evident, too, that at those times and in those places 
where the Spirit is plenteously poured out, the grand 
adversary will not be idle. The enemy who soweth 
tares among the wheat is subtle as well as powerful. 
He can, at will, assume the garb of an angel of light. 
"When he cannot prevent the word of life from taking 
effect, he can, by his influence upon the human mind, 
produce effects in some degree resembling those of 
the Holy Spirit. The sorcerers and the magicians of 
Egypt imitated the miracles of God wrought by the 
hand of Aaron ; and it is not too much to suppose 
that some of those fainting fits, and contortions and 
screamings, were produced by the same agency. The 
object was to throw discredit upon the work of the 
Almighty, to bring the revival into disrepute, and to 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 311 

induce the belief that the whole was the work of the 
devil. Many who were, to all appearance, most vio- 
lently wrought upon, gave evidence afterward that 
Ijiey had undergone no saving change. They re- 
turned, like the dog, to his vomit ; while others, 
upon whom the grace of God fell like the gentle dew 
from heaven, evinced by their subsequent life and 
conversation that they had indeed passed from death 
unto life. Universally applicable, therefore, is the 
Saviour's rule : " By their fruits ye shall know them ;" 
and of incalculable importance a season of proba- 
tion previous to the admission into the fold of Christ 
of any man, whatever may be his experience or his 
profession. 

In the ministry of that day, there were also those 
whose zeal outran their knowledge ; who, puffed up 
with their success, and living upon the increasing 
homage of their admirers, ran headlong into all man- 
ner of excesses and extravagances. Among these, 
James Davenport, pastor of the church at Southold, 
on Long Island, occupies a conspicuous place. He 
was a great favorite of Whitefield, who, in his Jour- 
nal, styles him u a dear minister of the blessed 
Jesus," and declares that he " never knew one keep 
so close a walk with God as Mr. Davenport. 55 Ten- 
nent affirmed him to be one of the most heavenly 
men he ever was acquainted with, and in the opinion 
of others, for heavenly communion and fellowship 
with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, he 
was even ahead of Whitefield himself. In the opin- 
ion of a grand jury, before whom he was summoned 
for his extravagancies, he was pronounced non corn- 



312 



BEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



2?os mentis, and the reader will be inclined to agree 
with their verdict, notwithstanding the high estimate 
placed upon him by his admirers. On one occasion, 
he addressed his people for almost twenty-four houi$ 
together ; with what effect on them we are not told, 
but the effect on himself was a dangerous illness, 
which confined him several days to his chamber. 
The patience on their part must have been quite as 
wonderful as his " gift of continuance." He pro- 
fessed to work miracles. The following is an instance 
of his success in that line, as given by our author : 

" A woman in an adjoining parish had been long 
insane, and for some time dumb. Davenport fasted 
and prayed for her recovery, and gave out that she 
would recover on a certain day that he named. On 
that day she died. He claimed the event as an an- 
swer to his prayer, as she was relieved from her 
infirmity by being taken to heaven. This was in the 
summer of 1740 ; not far from the time when White- 
field saw him, and was so much pleased with his 
piety." 

And now it became impressed on his mind that he 
should go forth as an itinerant. As Jonathan and 
his armor-bearer went to the camp of the Philistines, 
so he, and one Barber, known ever afterward as Da- 
venport's armor-bearer, started forth to rout the army 
of the aliens. They took no money, nor change of 
apparel, nor yet shoes, but were shod with hoots. 
Their first visit was to Easthampton, wading thither- 
ward up to their knees in snow, the very counterpart, 
as they supposed, of Jonathan and his armor-bearer 
climbing the hill on their hands and knees to meet 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 313 

the Philistines. The result of their labors there was 
said to be the conversion of twenty souls. He had 
a peculiar faculty of sowing dissentions and creating 
divisions in the different churches to which he gained 
access. Those ministers who would not open their 
pulpits for him he denounced, in unmeasured terms, 
as ungodly hirelings ; and the state of the public 
mind was such as favored everything that had the 
appearance of superior sanctity. In the progress of 
his travels, it was his custom to call on every minis- 
ter and demand an account of his religious experience. 
If any refused to give it, or if it was not to him 
satisfactory ; or if any were so hardy as to oppose 
his movements, straightway he denounced them as 
unconverted, summoned the people to the fields, 
which he called going forth without the camp bear- 
ing the reproach of Jesus, and there warned them 
against wolves in sheep's clothing. The last recorded 
outbreak of his fanaticism occurred at New London, 
whither he had gone, by invitation of his partisans, to 
organize a pure Church. In obedience, as he said, to 
messages from God, he commenced the work of puri- 
fication by ordering " wigs, cloaks, and breeches, 
hoods, gowns, rings, jewels, and necklaces to be 
brought together into his room and laid in a heap, 
that they might by his solemn decree be committed 
to the flames. To this heap he added the pair of 
plush breeches which he wore into the place?' He 
ordered, also, that all books in their possession written 
by such authors as he denounced should be added to 
the pile. Among these were the works of Flavel, 
Beveridge, Mather, and others. With great solemn- 



314 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ity a blaze was kindled on the wharf, amid a chorus 
of halleluiahs and shouts of glory to God. 

It is impossible at this day to form an adequate 
estimate of the evils resulting from the wild vagaries 
of this fanatic. He stood high, as we have seen, in 
the good opinion of Whitefield and the Tennents; 
and to thwart him, therefore, was, in the estimate of 
many, to oppose them, and, by consequence, to be 
ranked among the enemies of " the great awakening." 
He had not only numerous followers, but also many 
imitators, who, without his learning, readily imbibed 
the bitterness of his denunciatory style. To stay 
this evil, so far as it was in their power, the ministers 
of various Churches, in their associate capacity, drew 
up u Declarations," and sent them forth to the pub- 
lic, setting forth his conduct, the evils resulting from 
it, and the reasons for their own course toward him 
and his compeers. The " Declaration " of the asso- 
ciated pastors of Boston and Charlestown is written 
in a truly Christian spirit. They bear testimony to 
the " great and glorious work of God which he has 
begun and is carrying on in many parts," and " be- 
seech him to preserve, defend, maintain, and propa- 
gate it in spite of all the devices of Satan against it, 
of one kind or other." They speak of Davenport 
with great kindness, and give reasons for refusing to 
invite him to their pulpits, which, to every unpreju- 
diced* mind, must have been satisfactory. This, 
however, was far from being the case with great 
multitudes. The Rev. Thomas Prince, one of the 
signers of this Declaration, says, (we quote from the 
" Christian History," vol. ii, p. 408 :) 



WBITEFIELD AND THE GEE AT AWAKENING. 315 



" Upon publishing it on Friday, many were of- 
fended ; and some days after, Mr. Davenport thought 
himself obliged to begin in his public exercises to 
declare against us also ; naming some as unconverted, 
representing the rest as Jehoshaphat in Ahab's army, 
and exhorting the people to separate from us ; which 
so diverted the minds of many from being concerned 
about their own conversion to think and dispute 
about the case of others, as not only seemed to put an 
awful stop to their awakenings, but on all sides to 
roil our passions, and provoke the Holy Spirit, in a 
gradual and dreadf ul measure, to withdraw his in- 
fluence" 

To heighten the conflict, the admirers of Daven- 
port sent forth their manifestoes ; and a " Reply to 
the Declaration " was published by Croswell, a pastor 
in good standing at Groton, Conn. He says : 

" Let no one dare to do anything which hath a 
tendency to render his (Davenport's) ministry con- 
temptible, lest they kick against the pricks, and be 
found fighting against God. But rather let all who 
love the prosperity of Zion wish him God speed, 
and besiege the throne of grace night and day, that 
the blessings of more souls ready to perish may come 
upon him." 

Thus, at this time, there were three distinct parties 
in the Christian community. In the first place, there 
were those, not a few in the ministry and among the 
laity, who looked upon the whole of the revival as 
spurious, and attributed it to Satanic agency. They 
had so regarded it from the first ; and the mad freaks 
of Davenport and his associates could not fail to 



316 



EEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



strengthen them in their opinion. Of these, Chaun- 
cey, of Boston, who wrote a book against it, may be 
considered the leader. At the head of the second 
party was Edwards, rallying around whom were all 
who, themselves converted and led by the influences 
of the Holy Spirit, were enabled to discern what was 
erroneous, and to separate " what was no part of the 
work from the work itself." Hitherto they had been 
enabled successfully to contend against the former 
'class, and the revival spread through their instru- 
mentality with great and increasing power. But 
now that the third party, headed by Davenport and 
his armor-bearer, were increasing in numbers and 
influence, they found their worst foes among them 
who were professedly of their own household. To 
battle with the avowed enemies of the revival was 
comparatively easy ; but how could they contend 
against those who professed to be foremost in this 
good work, and who, in the opinion of great multi- 
tudes, were in reality the most honored instruments 
in carrying it forward ? The situation of Edwards, 
and of those who acted with him, was one of exceed- 
ing great perplexity. They did, perhaps, all that 
ought to have been expected. But the revival came 
to an end ; and this result, according to the concur- 
ring testimony of all parties, is mainly to be attrib- 
uted to the influence of the misguided. Davenport. 
In the opinion of our author, " he led it so deeply 
into such errors that it ought to stop, and provoked 
the opposition which brought it to an end." What 
share of blame in this matter ought to be attached to 
Whitefield it is impossible to say. It is evident, 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 317 



from his published J ournals, that he attached great 
importance to impressions from texts of Scripture 
occurring to the mind ;* that he regarded spasmodic 
affections, involuntary contortions, and fainting fits, 
when they occurred under his preaching, if not 
always, yet generally as evidences of a " gracious 
■work." His published opinions of the degeneracy of 
the clergy, and of the lamentable state in which he 
supposed them to be, have already been adverted to. 
These were powerful weapons in the hands of such a 
man as Davenport. Added to this, Whitefield had 
indorsed the fanatic, throughout the length and 
breadth of the land, as a most eminent saint. "What 
wonder, then, that he supposed himself to be some 
great one, and that multitudes from the least to the 
greatest gave heed to him, saying, " This man is the 
great power of God ? " 

Trumbull, in his History of Connecticut, relates 
some curious particulars relative to his peculiar mode 
of address. He says : 

" He had a strange, singing tone, which mightily 
tended to raise the feelings of weak and undiscerning 
people, and consequently to heighten the confusion 
among the passionate of his hearers. This odd, dis- 

° It appears that Edwards purposely took an opportunity to con- 
verse with Whitefield alone about impulses, and told him some reasons 
he had for thinking that he gave too great heed to such things. 
Whitefield did not seem to be offended, but yet did not appear inclined 
to converse much on that subject, or be convinced by anything that 
Edwards said to him. "It is also true," he adds. " that 1 thought 
Mr. Whitefield liked me not so well for my opposing these things ; 
and though he treated me with great kindness, yet he never made so 
much of an intimate of me as of some others.' 7 



318 



BEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



agreeable tuning of the voice in exercises of devotion 
was caught by the zealous exhorters, and became a 
characteristic of the Separate Teachers. The whole 
sect was distinguished by this sanctimonious tone." 

Several Churches exist at the present day in New 
England whose origin may be traced to the separa- 
tion caused by Davenport ; and so far as the nasal 
twang is concerned, the reader may possibly have 
met with some of his legitimate successors. 

Fortunately for the cause of truth in after ages, 
although too late, to prevent or stay the consequences 
of his erratic course, Davenport was led to see and 
acknowledge his errors. He published, under his 
own signature, his "Retractation." It is dated July 
28, 1744, and is given at full length by our author. 
In some respects it is one of the most curious docu- 
ments that ever issued from the press. We afford 
room for a few extracts. He says : 

"I am now fully convinced and persuaded that 
several things, which in the time of the work I was 
very industrious and instrumental in promoting, by a 
misguided zeal, were no parts of it, but of a different 
and contrary nature and tendency, and that I was 
much influenced in the affair by the false spirit which, 
unobserved by me, did (as I have been brought to see 
since) prompt me to unjust apprehensions and mis- 
conduct in several articles ; which have been great 
blemishes to the work of God, very grievous to some 
of God's children, no less insnaring and corrupting 
to others of them, a sad means of many persons ques- 
tioning the work of God, concluding and appearing 
against it, and of the hardening of multitudes in 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 319 

their sins, and an awful occasion of the enemies blas- 
pheming the right way of the Lord, and withal, very 
offensive to that Grod before whom I would lie in the 
dust, prostrate in deep humility and repentance on 
this account, imploring pardon for the Mediator's 
sake, and thankfully accepting the tokens thereof." 

He then goes on to specify his peculiar errors and 
sins. Among them, he enumerates his violations of 
the ninth commandment, in speaking evil of minis- 
ters, and proclaiming many of them to be uncon- 
verted ; thus setting up his private judgment as an 
infallible standard of other men's piety. He asks 
forgiveness of those ministers whom he thus injured, 
by blasting their characters and causing divisions and 
separations in their flocks. He confesses to have 
been led astray by the false spirit, in following im- 
pulses or impressions as a rule of conduct, whether 
they came with or without a text of Scripture. He 
believes, farther, that he has done much hurt by en- 
couraging private persons to a ministerial kind of 
exhorting, such men being thereby much puffed up, 
and falling into the snare of the devil. Of the affair 
at New London, to which reference has been made, 
he says, copying from a letter which he had written 
to Barber : 

"I was, to my shame be it spoken, the ringleader 
in that horrid action ; I was, my dear brother, under 
the powerful influence of the false spirit almost one 
whole day together, and part of several days. The 
Lord showed me afterward that the spirit I then acted 
by was in its operations void of true inward peace, 
laying the greatest stress on externals, neglecting the 



320 



REVIEWS AST) ESSAYS, 



heart, full of impatience, pride, and arrogance ; al- 
though I thought in the time of it that it was the 
Spirit of God in a high degree : awful, indeed ! My 
body, especially my leg, much disordered at the same 
time, (I had the long fever on me and the cankery 
humor, raging at once,) which Satan and my evil 
heart might make some handle of." 

We have not thought it necessary to follow our 
author in his accounts of the travels of Whitefield, 
or of the revival in the middle and southern states. 
He devotes an entire chapter to Whitefield in En- 
gland on his return from America, his breach with 
Wesley, and the revival consequent on his labors in 
Scotland : matters in themselves perhaps sufficiently 
interesting to those who have no other sources of in- 
formation, but rather irrelevant to the " great awak- 
ening." This, as we have seen, pertains chiefly to 
New England ; and in the final chapter, entitled, u the 
Results," our author confines himself, in the main, to 
that section of country. And what, the reader will 
ask, what were the results ? In the first place, it is 
evident that great multitudes were converted and 
added to the Churches. Not, however, by any means 
so many as would be inferred from Whitefield's Jour- 
nal. He was not a good judge of numbers, as appears 
from his exaggerated statements relative to the size 
of his congregations. Thus he preached, he says, to 
about six thousand hearers in Dr. Sewall's meeting- 
house in Boston. The house is still standing, and 
although, frorn the new arrangement of the seats, it 
will hold more than formerly, yet, from actual meas- 
urement, has seats only for twelve hundred and 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 321 

sixteen persons. A number more might have found 
standing-room, but it is scarcely possible that there 
were one half of Whitefield's estimate. Again, on 
the following morning, at Mr. Webb's meeting-house, 
at any rate not larger than Dr. SewalTs, he says : 
" There were about six thousand hearers in the house, 
besides great numbers standing about the doors." So 
also his statements relative to the numbers converted 
under his ministry must be received with caution. 
Indeed, he allowed himself no time to ascertain the 
results. He preached, saw much weeping and faint- 
ing in his auditory, gave a rough guess at the num- 
ber wrought upon, entered it in his J ournal with a 
note of thanksgiving, and passed on to repeat the 
process. Our author is very candid in his admission 
of these facts, and gives different authorities by whom 
the number of converts in New England is estimated 
variously at from twenty-five to fifty thousand.* 
Taking even the smaller number, which is probably 
below the truth, and estimating the whole number of 
inhabitants in New England, at that time, at about 
two hundred and fifty thousand, we have one tenth 
of the whole, including men, women, and children, 
as subjects of the revival. 

But there were other and even more important 
results. One we have already glanced at ; we mean 
the conversion of those who had entered the ministry 
and continued in it, without a saving knowledge of 

* u : It was estimated that in two or three years of the revival, thirty 
or forty thousand souls were born into the family of heaven in New 
England ; besides great numbers in New York and New Jersey, and 
in the more southern provinces. 1 ' — TruiribuU/s Hist Conn.^ vol. ii, p. 8, 

21 



322 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



the truth. It is impossible to tell how many there 
were of this class. Philip, in his " Life and Times 
of Whitefield," says, that on his third visit to Amer- 
ica there were not less than twenty ministers who 
considered him as the means of their conversion in 
the vicinity of Boston alone. " And," says our 
author, " those who owed their conversion to the 
revival, in the whole country, must have been con- 
siderably more numerous." Then, again, many min- 
isters who had been themselves converted were 
quickened to new life, and began to labor for visible 
manifestations of God's presence among their people. 
The doctrine, ruinous and fatal in its tendency, that 
ministers may be manufactured of unconverted men, 
received its death-blow. It may prevail to some ex- 
tent even yet, in some theological seminaries ; but it 
would be a difficult task to find in any part of these 
United States a society of any evangelical creed that 
would be satisfied with, or even tolerate, the labors 
of a minister who does not, at least, profess to have 
been regenerated. This, as we have seen, was not 
the case previously to the " great awakening," and 
the uncharitable and wholesale denunciations of 
"Whitefield, and even the bitter revilings of the de- 
mented Davenport, while they served to turn the 
attention of the people to this subject, were merci- 
fully overruled to effect so important a result. 

The history of " the great awakening " teaches 
several truths on the subject of revivals, to which we 
turn out* attention before closing this article. It 
shows very clearly, in the first place, that a revival 
of religion is the work of God ; that it is " not by 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GREAT AWAKENING. 323 

might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saitli the Lord 
of hosts." Instances are on record of persons being 
awakened by hearing sermons from their pastor 
which he had preached to them before without affect- 
ing them. How was this ? It can only be accounted 
for by referring it to the sovereignty of Jehovah. 
Eloquent as was "Whitefield, and powerful as were 
the efforts which he put forth, and successful as he 
generally was, instances were not few where he 
labored in vain and spent his strength for naught. 
In his own language, his congregations, in some 
places, were so unconcerned that he " began to ques- 
tion whether he had been speaking to rational or 
brute creatures." At other times, again, "the peo- 
ple," he says, " began to melt soon after I began to 
pray ;" and not nnfrequently there were visible man- 
ifestations of God's presence and power before the 
text was announced. So it was also in the history of 
others who labored for the salvation of souls, and so 
it has ever been from that day to the present. " My 
glory will I not give to another," saith the Lord ; and 
the history of every revival teaches, with more or less 
clearness, that the excellency of the power is of God, 
and not of man. Let not the minister of Christ 
infer from this that it is a matter of indifference how 
he preaches, or be tempted to rest satisfied without 
seeing fruit of his labors. It is required of him that 
he put forth his best efforts in the exercise of his best 
judgment, and God has promised the outpouring of 
his Spirit in answer to the prayers of his people. 
Nor need there be any difficulty on this subject. 
For the fruits of the earth, ttie husbandman is in- 



324 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



debted to the fertilizing shower and the genial rays 
of the sun. God giveth the increase ; but success is 
proportionate to the industry and the skill of the 
cultivator. There are times and seasons, too, when 
the indications are such as to warrant and demand, 
on the part of him who would cultivate Immanuel's 
field, increasing labor and the exhibition of peculiar 
portions of divine truth. Hence the force of that 
declaration, " He who winneth souls is wise and 
the exceeding preciousness of that promise, " If any 
man lack wisdom let him ask of God." 

We may learn from the history of the great awak- 
ening something of the subject-matter and of the 
style of preaching best calculated to promote the sal- 
vation of sinners. The revivalists of that day laid 
aside their philosophy and metaphysics. Disputed 
doctrines and sectarian dogmas were for a while for- 
gotten. The sinner's depravity and danger ; the 
necessity of regeneration ; the atoning blood of Christ, 
its freeness and its sufficiency ; these were the themes 
on which they dwelt, and these the efforts which God 
delighted to bless. 

An extract from Whitefield's reflections on leaving 
New England will give the reader an idea of his 
opinion relative to the manner of successfully pro- 
claiming scriptural truth. He says : 

" I think the ministers preaching almost universally 
by notes is a certain mark they have, in a great 
measure, lost the old spirit of preaching. For though 
all are not to be condemned that use notes, yet it is a 
sad symptom of the decay of vital religion, when 
reading sermons becomes fashionable, where extern- 



WHITEFIELD AM) THE GREAT AWAKENING. 325 

pore preaching did once almost universally prevail. 
When the spirit of prayer began to be lost, then 
forms of prayer were invented ; and I believe the 
same observation will hold good as to preaching." 

We make no comment on these remarks ; but it is 
strange that those who profess to be great admirers of 
Whitefield, and to be desirous of emulating his suc- 
cess, should, in this respect, be so backward in follow- 
ing his example. 

A lesson, which cannot be too frequently inculcated, 
is also taught us by the history under consideration. 
It is the insidious nature of spiritual pride. jSTo one 
is so liable to this as the minister of Christ, whose 
labors, through the divine blessing, have been more 
than ordinarily successful. Davenport, as we have 
seen, was so puffed up by it as to fall into the snare 
of the devil ; and Whitefield attributes to his success 
many of his aberrations from the path of humility. 
His celebrated letter to his spiritual guide, in which 
he talks to Wesley in a dictatorial style, and tells 
him if he " must dispute to stay till he is master of 
his subject," is apologized for by our author by say- 
ing, " He would not have written it had he not been 
puffed up by his reception and success at Boston." 
Whitefield himself, writing to a clerical friend, uses 
the following language : " You know, reverend sir, 
how difficult it is to meet with success, and not be 
puffed up with it ; and, therefore, if any such thing 
was discernible in my conduct, O pity me, and pray 
to the Lord to heal my pride. All I can say is, that 
I desire to learn of Jesus Christ to be meek and 
lowly in heart ; but my corruptions are so strong. 



326 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



and my employ so dangerous, that I am sometimes 
afraid. 5 ' "What need, therefore, of incessant watch- 
fulness on the part of every successful minister, lest 
the enemy get an advantage over him while engaged 
in an " employ so dangerous " and with " corruptions 
so strong P 5 

Finally, our own impressions of the beneficial tend- 
ency of* the itinerant system, by which a constant 
interchange of ministerial gifts is attained and per- 
petuated, have been abundantly strengthened by a 
perusal of the volume before us. Whitefield, as is 
well known, traveled incessantly throughout the 
country; and Bellamy, Parsons, Tennent, Mills, 
Pomeroy, and Wheelock will be had in everlasting 
remembrance as the most zealous promoters of the 
revival ; and they were itinerant preachers ; traveling 
extensively, almost constantly; and preaching in 
every pulpit to which they could gain admittance. 
The churches of the Congregational and Presbyte- 
rian denominations, as well as the Baptists and Epis- 
copalians of the present day, are beginning to give 
practical evidence of their belief in the beneficial 
effects of our system, and changes are becoming 
almost as frequent among them as among the Meth- 
odists. There is, however, this difference; while, 
with us, these results are produced by the operation 
of a wisely-ordered and well-directed system, among 
them, these changes are frequently involuntary on 
the one side or the other, and are very often com- 
pelled by mere caprice on the part of the laity. In 
the smaller and less wealthy congregations a very 
few men — a small minority in point of number — 



WHITEFIELD AND THE GEE AT AWAKENING. 327 

have it in their power, by management, and especially 
by " withholding the supplies," to dismiss, with or 
without cause, their minister. They say unto him, 
Go, and he goeth. But where ? The world is all 
before him, but not exactly " where to choose." To 
us, there is not on this earth a more pitiful sight than 
the caucusing and electioneering of a flock on the 
subject of dismissing an old shepherd, or calling a 
new one ; unless, indeed, it be the discharged shep- 
herd himself traversing the country by stage, and 
steamboat, and rail-car, to find a flock willing to give 
him a part of their fleece in return for his labors. 
"Whenever we meet such men, on such an errand, we 
are involuntarily reminded of those " shepherds " of 
whom Isaiah says, " They all look to their own way, 
every one for his gain, from his quarter and of the 
" wight " whom the poet calls 

li Abject, mean, and vile ; 
Who begs a brother of the earth 
To give him leave to toil ! " 

Such spectacles are very common, and of increas- 
ing frequency throughout the country. They are 
bringing the ministerial office into contempt. There 
is no apostolic model for a clergyman in this predica- 
ment ; and we place on this page the prediction, to 
be referred to by a coining generation, that a system 
resembling our own in its essential features, will be 
adopted and prevail in the various branches of the 
Christian Church long before the meridian of the 
millennial glory. 



328 



EEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



THEOPNEUSTY.* 



Our author is a colleague of Merle D'Aubigne in 
the Theological School at Geneva. He is evidently 
an evangelical Christian, a profound scholar, an able 
writer. His style is pleasing, lacking neither vivacity 
nor precision; and happily for his reputation, his 
work has fallen into the hands of a translator who 
entered fully into his spirit, and who has presented 
his volume in just such an English dress as the author 
himself would have selected had he possessed an 
equal acquaintance with our vernacular. The new- 
coined Greek title which he has given to his book — 
harsh though it sounds from its novelty — is expressive, 
and indicates with sufficient clearness the subject 
upon which he writes, the inspiration of the sacred 
Scriptures. 

What do we mean by the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures ? One class of writers, including, perhaps, the 
greater number of the German neologists, under- 
stand by this inspiration nothing more than a divine 
afflatus ; by which they mean, if they have any 
meaning, that the sacred writers were inspired much 

* Theopneusty : or, the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. 
By S. R. L. GrAUSSEN, Professor of Theology in Geneva. Switzer- 
land. Translated by Edward Norris Kirk. Second American, from 
the second French edition, enlarged and improved by the author. 
New York: John S. Taylor & Co. 1844. 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



329 



in the same way as the poet who invokes the aid of 
the celestial nine in suggesting suitable dactyls and 
spondees for the euphony of his hexameters ; or, if 
they eschew heathenism, the afflatus of which they 
speak may mean that kind of inspiration which, in 
the composition of his great poem, Milton sought and 
found. 

Others go further. They admit that the sacred wri- 
ters were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit so far 
as that they had suggestions at times from him, and 
that they were kept from running into any egregious 
blunders on matters connected with the salvation of 
the soul ; but that, being men, and, for the most part 
not philosophers, they have been permitted to mingle 
errors in science with truths in theology, and absurd- 
ities in narrative with profound didactics. Thus 
Bishop Wilson remarks, "Men cannot say where 
this inspiration begins, and where it ends." And 
Dr. Dick, "We should recognize three degrees of 
inspiration. In the first place, there are many things 
which the writers could know by the mere exercise 
of their natural faculties ; in the second place, there 
were other things for which their understandings and 
their faculties needed to be divinely strengthened ; 
finally, there are many others still which contain 
subjects that made a direct inspiration indispensa- 
ble." Of course, men of this persuasion claim the 
right — it is theirs, doubtless, seeing they have the 
ability — to rectify errors, to suggest amendments ; 
in short, to exercise an arbitrary editorial supervi- 
sion, by explanatory parentheses, by erasures, by 
interlineations. 



330 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



Another class, at the head of whom stands the 
learned Michaelis, fully admit the inspiration under 
which parts of the sacred canon were written. 
Matthew and J ohn wrote their Gospels as moved by 
the Holy Ghost ; but it is doubtful if Luke were thus 
inspired ; and almost if not quite certain that Mark 
was not. So with the writings attributed to Moses, 
to David, to Isaiah ; and so with the Epistles of the 
New Testament. A part — they profess to know 
which part — is given to us in the words of the Holy 
Ghost ; but other portions are in this respect doubt- 
ful ; and yet others are of human origin, and conse- 
quently of nothing higher than patristic authority. 

Whitby, with whom Adam Clarke seems to agree, 
as he quotes him with approbation in his Introduc- 
tion to the Gospels, contends for such an inspiration 
as has reference to the matter written, and not to the 
manner / to the facts, and not to the phraseology : 
that although in some instances the words and phrases 
used by the sacred writers were dictated by the Holy 
Spirit, yet that this is far from being the case uni- 
versally, or even generally. 

In opposition to all these theories, our author main- 
tains that the Scriptures were divinely and miracu- 
lously inspired ; that the whole, and every part, was 
equally and entirely inspired; that this inspiration 
extends to, and includes, not only the facts and the 
sentiments which are left on record, but the words in 
which these facts and sentiments are expressed. He 
affirms, " this kind and degree of inspiration of all 
the Scriptures ; of the historical books as well as the 
prophecies ; the Epistles as well as the Psalms ; the 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



331 



Gospels of Mark and Luke as well as those of John 
and Matthew ; the history of Paul's shipwreck in the 
Adriatic Sea as well as that of the destruction of the 
ancient world ; the scenes of Mamre, under Abra- 
ham's tent, as those of the days of Christ in the 
eternal tent ; the prophetic prayers, in which the 
Messiah, a thousand years before his advent, ex- 
claimed in the Psalms, 6 My God ! my God ! why 
hast thou forsaken me ? they pierced my hands and 
my feet ; they cast lots upon my vesture ;' as well as 
the narrative of the same events by the evangelists. 
In other words, we aim to establish, by the word of 
God, that the Scriptures are from God, that all the 
Scriptures are from God, and that every part of the 
Scriptures is from God." 

It will, of course, be understood that our author 
does not mean to say that God did not use men as 
instruments in furnishing his revelation to their fel- 
low-men. They spake, but spake only, spake always 
in the sacred canon as — only as — they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost ; and, as Paul has it, in the words 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth. They were amanu- 
enses ; the Bible is His. Just as we may say, for 
illustration, the Paradise Lost is Milton's — Milton's 
in conception, in diction, in everything — although 
this part were written from his lips by his friend 
Phillips, and that by a visitor who chanced to be 
present. 

We agree with our author. We believe his posi- 
tion is the only one from which error, in her protean 
shapes, can be successfully assailed; the only one 
upon which it is safe to stand, or that, as a founda* 



332 



BEYIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



tion, is worthy of God to give. Without following 
precisely our author's method, or confining ourselves 
to his arguments or illustrations, at the same time 
making this general acknowledgment of our indebt- 
edness, we purpose to notice some of the more promi- 
nent objections to " theopneusty," or the plenary 
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; and then to pre- 
sent a few arguments by which it is sustained. 

An objection that is not formally noticed by the 
author, for the simple reason that he wrote not for 
the skeptic but for the inquirer, is glanced at by the 
American editor in his Introduction, and is drawn 
from the fallibility of man and the impotence of 
human language. It may be thus stated : How can 
that be a perfect revelation of the mind of an infinite 
being which is couched in the feeble language of a 
finite creature? This objection is specious; but it 
will be seen that with its pretended reverence for the 
Creator, it in fact aims a blow at his supreme omnipo- 
tence, and arrogantly attempts to decide what he can 
and what he cannot do. Is it the imperfection of 
human language, or the inability of the great Su- 
preme, that lies at the foundation of this objection ? 
Could not God, were he so disposed, speak to you in 
your own language intelligibly ? Doubtless. Where 
then is the difficulty in believing th^t he has spoken 
intelligibly to others ? And where the impossibility 
of his enabling them to record faithfully and exactly 
every syllable thus spoken ? Is there any reason, 
from the necessity of the case, that because his com- 
munications have been made to finite and fallible 
creatures, that these communications when trans- 



THEOPJSTEUSTY. 



333 



mitted to us must be mingled and mixed up with 
their fallible or erroneous conceptions ? But again, 
admitting the objection in its full force, what does it 
amount to ? Simply to this, that by so imperfect a 
medium as human language a perfect revelation of an 
infinitely perfect being cannot be made. We admit 
it. The Bible pretends to nothing of the kind. 
Neither in heaven nor on earth, by angels nor by men, 
will the Almighty be found out to perfection. It is 
contended only that God has, by revelation, in lan- 
guage intelligible to men, revealed so much of him- 
self as it is essential to man's well-being to know ; 
that in so doing he has chosen confessedly an imper- 
fect medium, human language ; and that he has done 
so because they for whom the revelation is intended 
are incapable of receiving it by any other. What is 
the testimony of the Scriptures themselves to this 
point ? With those who believe them to have ema- 
nated in any way from God, their decision is final. 
" The words of the Lord," says the psalmist, " are 
pure words." " As for God, his way is perfect : the 
word of the Lord is tried," or, as the margin has it, 
" refined." So, too, the great Teacher himself: "I 
have given them thy word : thy word is truth." 
And, referring to the Old Testament Scriptures, he 
declares that not even a jot nor a tittle — the most 
minute and insignificant particle — shall fail of its 
complete fulfillment. Are declarations like these, 
and they abound in the sacred record, reconcilable 
with the idea that the imperfection of the medium 
through which His will is communicated at all viti- 
ates the perfection of the revelation itself? Do they 



334 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



not rather teach that even the jots and tittles, though 
marked down by human agency, were placed just 
where He designed them to be placed — that they too 
are His ? 

But we are asked, Where is the necessity of inspir- 
ing men to write that which they already knew ? Is 
not a large portion of the Scriptures a mere narrative 
of facts, well known without inspiration to those who 
wrote, and to others also ? Does not the Bible 
abound in self-evident propositions ; in genealogical 
tables, equally accessible to all at the time of their 
transcription ; in songs, in catalogues, in palpable tru- 
isms ? Is it not absurd on its very face to suppose 
that the all-wise Being wrought miracles — for the 
gift of inspiration is miraculous — unnecessarily ? 

This objection has truly a formidable appearance. 
It is this which has driven divines, theologians, com- 
mentators, to the pitiful subterfuge of classifying, 
according to their own judgment, the revelations of 
His book. This sentence is wholly inspired ; that 
was written under a kind of partial inspiration, one 
half, or three fourths, as the case may be ; while with 
this evidently God had nothing to do. It is the sen- 
timent of Moses, or of Paul, or of the unlettered 
son of Zebedee ! We have called this a pitiful 
subterfuge, and shall verify the charge before we 
close. In the mean time we say, in answer to the 
objection : 

First. It has its foundation in a total misapprehen- 
sion of the question. That question is not, Did the 
sacred writers obtain all their knowledge by a direct 
inspiration from Heaven ? but, Were they led by the 



THEOPKEUSTY. 



335 



Holy Gliost to write what they have written ? We 
ask not, Were they indebted for all the statements 
made by them to a direct supernatural communica- 
tion ? but, Did they record such things as God di- 
rected ? Did they speak as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost? 

Secondly. To make this answer still clearer, let us 
refer again to Milton's great poem. He employed 
more than one to transcribe his verse. Beyond a 
doubt it contains a great many things which were as 
well known to his amanuenses as to himself. There 
are truisms, and " old saws,", and catalogues ; there 
is evidence not only of profound research and deep 
investigation, but there are what we deem fanciful 
speculations, common-place sentiments, school-boy 
logic. What then % Is not the work Milton's ? Is 
it not all his ? Apply this reasoning to the Bible, 
and the difficulty vanishes. Let it be borne in mind 
further, that the inspiration of which we speak and 
for which we contend, is not the inspiration of the 
writer, but of the matter written. The internal state 
of him who wields the pen is never presented as an 
object of faith. The statements made by the agent 
selected for this purpose may have been perfectly 
familiar to him before he began to write ; he may 
have been an eye-witness or an ear-witness ; he may 
have received them by tradition ; or, on the contrary, 
he may have been utterly ignorant of the meaning 
of what he had written, as doubtless was the case 
with a part of the prophecies ; but all this is wide of 
the mark ; it has nothing to do with the question at 
issue. " God spake unto the fathers by the prophets," 



336 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



(Heb. i, 1 ;) and " Christ speaks in me," says Paul. 
(2 Cor. xiii, 3.) 

Thus, too, very readily, may we dispose of the ob- 
jection, that the Scriptures contain many things in 
themselves so simple, so level to the comprehension 
of a child, that it is not to be supposed that they 
came from Him whose thoughts are not as man's 
thoughts, but higher, even as the heavens are higher 
than the earth. It is too simple, too plain. Say you 
so % We turn you over to him who makes precisely 
the opposite objection ; who professes to doubt the 
inspiration of those parts of the record which he can- 
not fully understand. This, says he, is dark, obscure, 
mysterious. Now God is light, and in him is no 
darkness at all; and can that be a revelation which 
does not reveal ? Yerily, between you we shall have 
nothing left. For whom was the Bible written ? 
Tor the child and the philosopher, for the wise and 
the simple, for all. It is, then, in this respect, just 
what might have been expected. Were not the 
truths essential to the salvation of " these little ones " 
brought down to the level of their comprehension, of 
what use would it be to them ? And did it contain 
nothing ^ut what a finite mind might readily com- 
prehend, that fact would render more than question- 
able the divinity of its origin. " It is the glory of God 
to conceal." Man is directed to " search the Scrip- 
tures ;" and he who, by education and early training, 
is best qualified for the task, who has " searched " 
longest, most diligently, most perseveringly, has been 
rewarded most amply. He returns again and again 
to his task. At each perusal new beauties flash upon 



THEOPNUESTY. 



337 



him. A long life is thus spent. At its close his lan- 
guage is the same as at the beginning, " Thy thoughts, 
O Lord, are very deep and, with the humblest fol- 
lower of the Lamb, he exclaims, "Now we see 
through a glass, darkly." Is it enough ? It is ; for 
Jesus hath said unto him also, " Thou shalt know 
hereafter." 

A want of uniformity in the style of the sacred 
writers is urged as a fatal objection to the plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures. How is it, says the 
objector, if God be the author of the entire Bible, 
that we discover such a variety in the style in which 
it is written ? David differs from Moses ; Isaiah 
soars beyond his associates in the grandeur of his dic- 
tions ; and Luke and Peter and Paul has each his 
own peculiarity, by which, without a prompter, his 
style may be readily distinguished. 

We admit the fact, but deny the correctness of the 
inference. On the contrary, this variety of style is 
just what we have a right to look for in everything 
emanating from the great Supreme. Perpetual di- 
versity and endless variation characterize all his 
works. One star differeth from another in glory ; so 
does one countenance, one intellect, one blade of 
grass, from every other. There is everywhere, in the 
kingdom of nature, of providence, of grace, uniform- 
ity sufficient to establish the unity of the Godhead ; 
variety abounding to attest his infinite wisdom and 
limitless power. So with the Bible : running through 
all its pages from Genesis to Revelation, there is uni- 
formity of doctrine, concord of sentiment, agreement 

in facts ; while there are also peculiarities in phrase- 
22 



338 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ology, varieties of illustration, and diversities of argu- 
ment. It is sometimes, slightly to modify the lan- 
guage of our author; it is sometimes the sublime 
simplicity of John ; sometimes the excited, elliptical, 
startling, argumentative energy of Paul ; sometimes 
the fervor and solemnity of Peter ; it is the majestic 
poetry of Isaiah, or the lyrical verse of David ; it is 
the simple narrative of Moses, or the sententious wis- 
dom of Solomon; yes, it is all this; it is Peter, it 
is Isaiah, it is Matthew, it is John, it is Moses, but 
it is — God. Will the objector confine the Infinite to 
one peculiar style ? Will he arrogate to himself the 
power of judging of the greater propriety of this or 
that method of elucidating an argument or narrating 
a fact ? Does he mean when he refers this passage 
to a peculiarity in the early education of Saul of 
Tarsus, and that to the absurdities of the Mishna and 
the Talmud, from which he gravely tells us James 
borrowed arguments and illustrations, does he mean 
that he can recognize the true and only idiom in 
which it was proper for the Holy Ghost to convey 
instruction ? 

Again : the argument is a fallacy. It proves too 
much. If it be admitted that the diversity of the 
style of the sacred writers precludes the supposition 
that the entire Bible came from God, it will prove, 
when pressed a little, that no part of it is from God. 
The most rapturous flight of the evangelical prophet, 
the most glorious outburst of the sweet singer of 
Israel, the sublimest rhetoric of the apostle to the 
Gentiles, bears as legibly the stamp and signet of 
Isaiah, of David, or of Paul, as does the narrative of 



THEOPNUESTY. 



339 



the simplest event recorded by either in their indi- 
vidual history. Our author's illustration of this point 
is striking and to the purpose : 

"If God himself, in order to save the French na- 
tion from a frightful explosion, by introducing the 
Gospel among them, should deign to send some 
prophets by whose mouth he would make himself 
heard, they would certainly preach in the French 
language. But then, what would be their style, and 
what would you require as characteristic of the style 
of God ? He might choose that one of these proph- 
ets should speak like Fenelon, and the other like 
Bonaparte. Then it would be in a certain sense the 
pithy, barking, jerking style of the great general ; it 
would be again, in the same sense, the flowing style, 
the sustained and wire-drawn period of the priest of 
Carnbray ; but, in another sense, more elevated and 
more true, it would be, in the one and in the other 
of these two mouths, the style of God, the periods of 
God, the manner of God, the word of God. . . . 
If, then, in speaking to men on the earth, he must 
adopt the words and the construction of the Hebrews 
and the Greeks, instead of the syntax of the heavens 
and the vocabulary of archangels, why should he not 
also equally have borrowed their gait, their style, 
and their personality ? " 

Let us now turn-our attention to what is in reality 
the main reason for the adoption of a sentiment ad- 
verse to the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. It 
is this : Errors are found there — errors in doctrine, in 
logic, in facts. Evidently these never could have 
been dictated by the God of truth. The only alter- 



340 



REVIEWS AjSTD ESSAYS. 



native then is, that while other parts of the record 
doubtless came from him, the authorship of these 
must be attributed to men uninspired and fallible, 
like ourselves. Let ns look at this. And first as to 
doctrinal errors. By what standard are we to try 
them and to pass judgment ? Unless we profess to 
have received, ourselves, a direct revelation from 
God, evidently we have no test to which to bring 
them but the Scriptures themselves. By those to 
whom our argument is mainly addressed, this is ad- 
mitted ; and while they are ready to receive the 
teachings of inspiration, so far as they admit that 
inspiration, they beg to be excused from receiving 
manifest contradictions as the words of an unchange- 
able God. So do we. But where are these contra- 
dictions ? Here is one. It is clearly revealed that 
Jesus Christ will be the sole judge of an assembled 
universe at that day ; that men and angels who kept 
not their first estate, will then receive from him their 
final and irrevocable doom. By what authority then 
does Paul say, We shall judge angels ? By what 
authority ? By precisely the same, the ready answer 
is, as that whereon the same Paul assured the Athen- 
ians that " God has appointed a day in which he will 
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom 
he hath ordained." But is there not a contradiction 
here ? First settle conclusively the meaning of the 
apostle in both places ; and then we may be prepared 
to answer that question. As it is, while scarcely any 
two of your learned commentators agree ; while one 
concludes the apostle's meaning to be that the saints 
shall be assessors with Christ in the final judgment, 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



341 



and another that he refers not to the final judgment 
at all ; while one assures us that the apostle is merely 
referring to the predictions of Daniel, and another 
that he means that the saints, in the future world, 
shall be raised to a rank more elevated than even that 
of the angels in heaven ; while these contradictory 
explanations are found on the learned pages, even of 
those who deny or doubt the theopneusty of the Scrip- 
tures, we hold ourselves not bound to answer your 
question. Tou do not surely insist upon our solving 
a contradiction until you tell us plainly what that 
contradiction is. 

A similar objection is sometimes urged with refer- 
ence to the doctrinal teaching of the apostles on that 
momentous event, the second coming of Christ and 
the destruction of our world. " The coming of the 
Lord draweth nigh," says James ; " the end of all 
things," says Peter, " is at hand ;" and says Paul to 
the Hebrews, " Ye see the day approaching." Evi- 
dently, says the objector, such opinions could not 
come from God, for they were contradicted by the 
event. Thus the skeptic reasons ; and the professing 
disciple yields the point, and accounts for it by sup- 
posing that such passages wer& not inspired, and were 
the mere opinions of the apostles. But how absurd 
is this ! You first assume that in these and similar 
passages the apostles meant to teach that the day of 
judgment and the destruction of the world were 
close at hand ; and by this supposition you strip the 
sacred writers not only of inspiration but of common 
sense. Inspired or uninspired, they could not mean 
on one page to assert one thing, and something directly 



842 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



opposite on the next : they could not beseech those 
to whom they wrote in one Epistle (2 Thess. ii, 1-3) 
not to be troubled or shaken in mind as that the day of 
Christ is at hand ; and then, in the very teeth of that 
declaration, assure others that that day is at hand. 
Deny them plenary inspiration if you will, but allow 
them common sense. 

Indeed, objections of this kind, once deemed insu- 
perable without giving up the theopneusty of the 
Scriptures, are gradually vanishing, as closer investi- 
gation and more thorough research reveal the mean- 
ing of the sacred record. 

From the days of Jerome it has been common to 
attribute to the writers of the New Testament the 
use of inconclusive arguments, defective reasoning, 
bad logic. Even St. Paul, we are told, "does not 
know how to develop a hyperbaton or to conclude 
a sentence ; and having to do with rude people, he 
has employed the conceptions which, if at the outset 
he had not taken care to announce as spoken after 
the manner of men, would have shocked men of good 
sense." Hence the conclusion, that inspiration can- 
not extend . to the style and the phraseology of the 
apostles, is irresistible. • Truly it is ; that is, if what 
Jerome did not understand is therefore unintelligi- 
ble ; if the mind of the objector is to be for all men, 
of all ages, the unalterable standard of reason, and 
logic, and common sense. Stripped of its pompous 
phraseology, the objection amounts to this : I do not 
see the bearing of this reasoning, the pertinency of 
that argument, the connection between these premises 
and that conclusion ; therefore it is not inspired, it 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



343 



came not from God ! Nay, rather let me therefore 
look into this matter more closely ; let me study it 
with more patience, with more humility ; and look 
up with more earnestness and more faith to Him who 
hath declared that if any man lack wisdom, and will 
ask of him, he will give liberally and upbraid him 
not. But says our author : 

" We have something yet more serious to add. 
"We ask, Where will you stop when you have once 
entered on this path ? And by what reasons will you 
in your turn stop those who wish to go still beyond 
you ? Tou dare to correct one part of the word of 
God ; by what right then will you blame those who 
may wish to correct the rest ? Beings of yesterday, 
while they are traversing this earth as a shadow, with 
the eternal book of God in their hands, they dare to 
say, This, Lord, is worthy of thee, this is unworthy 
of thee ! They pretend to select for themselves in 
the oracles of God ; to ascribe one part of them to 
the folly of man, to separate the mistakes of Isaiah 
or Moses, the prejudices of Peter or of Jude, the 
paralogisms of Paul, the superstitions of John, from 
the thought of God ! Lamentable rashness ! We . 
repeat it, where will they stop in this fatal work ? for 
they place themselves at the very table on the one 
side of which are seated the Socinuses, the Grimal- 
dis, the Priestleys ; and on the other, the Rosseaus, 
the Yolneys, the Dupuis. Between them and Eich- 
orn, between them and William Cobbett, between 
them and Strauss, where is the difference ? It is in 
the species, not in the genus. It is in the quantity 
of the imputations of errors, and of irreverent re- 



344 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



marks ; it is not in the quality. There is some dif- 
ference in their boldness, none in their profaneness. 
The one and the other have found errors in the word 
of God : they have both pretended to rectify them. 
But we ask, is it less absurd on the part of a creature 
to wish to improve in God's creation the hyssop that 
cometh out of the wall, than that of the cedar of 
Lebanon ; to pretend to rectify the organization of a 
glow-worm, than to wish to increase the light of the 
sun ? By what right will ministers who say that they 
see nothing but the language of J ewish prejudices in 
the accounts given by the evangelists of the demo- 
niacs and the miracles of Jesus Christ driving oat the 
impure spirits ; by what right will they pronounce it 
strange that another sees in the miracles of Saul's 
conversion, of the resurrection, of the multiplication 
of bread, or of the day of Pentecost, nothing but a 
discreet and useful compliance with the ignorance of 
a people fond of the marvelous ? By what authority 
would a professor who denies the inspiration of Paul's 
arguments blame Mr. De Wette for rejecting that of 
the prophecies of the Old Testament, or of Mr. 
Wirgmann making his separation of the JSFeio Testa- 
ment, or Mr. Strauss changing into fable the miracles 
and the very person of Jesus Christ ? " 

With reference to what have been deemed errors 
in the narrations of the inspired writers, in their 
dates, their quotations, their allusions to the events 
of cotemporaneous history, it is unnecessary for us 
to dwell at any length. One after another, difficul- 
ties in this respect which seemed insurmountable 
have been solved by patient investigation and re- 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



345 



Bearcli. From the time of Porphyry the Syrian, who, 
in the reign of Diocletian, collected these apparent 
discrepancies into a volume, his legitimate successors 
have been hurling darts stolen from his armory, and 
presenting difficulties that have been solved, and ob- 
jections that have been again and again triumphantly 
refuted. We do not object to this. The enemies of 
inspiration will continue to write, and its friends 
must expect to contend against them. Not until 
they put off the harness and enter into rest will this 
warfare be accomplished. But we do object to the 
folly, the disloyalty, of the professed believers in 
revelation, of those set for the defense of the Gospel, 
of such men as Pye Smith,* and the Bishop of Cal- 
cutta,f and Tw r esten,J who, because of these attacks 
of the aliens, take the indefensible, and unsafe, and 
false position, in the language of the latter, " that all 
is not equally inspired in the Bible ; and that if we 
admit no errors in the details of the evangelical narra- 
tions w r e shall be thrown into inextricable difficulties 
to explain them." 

And what are these fancied errors which throw 
doubts upon the inspiration of the sacred writers, 
and are deemed sufficient to drive the leaders of the 
sacramental host from their impregnable position? 
They are such as these : Luke tells us of the census 
ordered by the Pom an emperor, that " this t axing 
was first made when Cyrenius (Publius Sirius Quirin- 

* Defense of Haffner's Preface to the Bible, 
t Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. 

\ Rector of the Berlin University. The translation is by the 
American editor of the work under review. 



346 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ins) was governor of Syria." History tells us that 
Cyrenius was not governor of Syria until twelve or 
fifteen years after the birth of Jesus. Hence the 
difficulty. Luke is mistaken : consequently, pro tanto, 
Luke could not have written under inspiration. "We 
will not burden our page with the solutions that have 
been given to this difficulty. The reader may find 
them in Lardner, Neweome, Campbell, A. Clarke, 
and other commentators ; but we will ask, if it be 
not almost miraculous that Luke, certainly the best 
educated of the evangelists, should fall into so palpa- 
ble a blunder ? Leaving inspiration out of the ques- 
tion, it is very strange that he who knew so well 
about another taxing under the same Cyrenius (Acts 
v, 37,) should be so ignorant of the first as this objec- 
tion seeks to make him. After all, the blunder is 
about the same, when the original is correctly trans- 
lated, as it would be in a writer of our own day to 
assert that Braddock's army was saved by the skill of 
General Washington. True, Washington was not a 
general at the time, nor was Cyrenius a governor at 
the date of the enrollment ; but in either case the 
statement is correct, and perfectly intelligible. 

Again : Matthew tells us that Judas hanged him- 
self, while Peter declares that " falling headlong, he 
burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed 
out." * We are told here is a contradiction, conse- 
quently no inspiration. But there is no contradiction. 
Both events were equally true, as in the case of the 
man referred to by our author, who, seated in a win- 
dow of the fourth story, shot himself with a pistol, 
and falling thence was dashed to pieces. One writer 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



347 



relating the circumstance attributes his death to the 
shot ; and another may say, with equal truth, " fall- 
ing headlong, all his bowels gushed out." 

With what facility we may be led into error on 
points of this nature, and thus attribute our own 
error to the sacred writers, is illustrated by the two 
miracles wrought by Christ in the multiplication of 
the loaves and fishes. If it tad so happened that 
Matthew and Mark had related but the one in which 
he fed the five thousand with five loaves, and Luke 
and John had given an account only of the other, in 
which seven loaves were broken among four thousand, 
how very readily would the skeptic have jumped to 
the conclusion that they were all referring to the 
same event, that they manifestly contradict each 
other, and that, consequently, their histories are 
worthy of no credit ? The professed believer in a 
partial inspiration of the Scriptures would not have 
gone so far. He would have attributed the blunder 
to human infirmity, and have joined with the skeptic 
in using it as an argument to disprove the declaration 
that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. 
Thus is it also with the numerical statements made 
by the writers of the Old and the New Testaments : 

"As, for instance, that of the talents of gold 
brought from Ophir to King Solomon, (1 Kings ix, 
28 ; 2 Chron. viii, 18 ;) that of the numbering of the 
Israelites in the time of David, (2 Sam. xxiv, 9 ; 
1 Chron. xxi, 5 ;) that of the children of the patri- 
arch Jacob, transported into Egypt, (Gen. xlvi, 26, 
27 ; Deut. x, 22 ; Acts vii, 14,) etc. One single cir- 
cumstance, in addition to these rapid recitals, will at 



34:8 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



once place tliem in accord before us. King Solomon 
might, in the one case, have reckoned the gross 
amount of his revenue, and in the other have de- 
ducted thirty talents therefrom for the expenses of 
the navy. The numbering of David might exhibit 
two results, according as it was inclusive or was 
exclusive of the ordinary military force (militia) 
already numbered throughout the kingdom, 288,000 
men with their officers of every rank. Finally, 
there might be sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five per- 
sons for the family of the patriarch, according as we 
reckon, on the one hand, Jacob with J oseph and his 
two sons ; on the other, Ifer, Onda, and Dinah ; and 
to these latter may be added the wives of the eleven 
patriarchs." 

It is unnecessary, however, nor can we afford space, 
to enter into the minute details of these and similar 
apparent discrepancies. We say apparent discrepan- 
cies. "We simply ask, Is it not more rational to con- 
clude, more easy t^ believe, that in every one of them 
there may have been circumstances which, from the 
brevity of the narrative, have been omitted, and 
which, were they known to us, as in the case of the 
miracle above referred to, all would have been 
equally plain, easy, and intelligible ? If, with the 
skeptic, you take ground against the inspiration of 
the Bible in toto, we may not here stop to argue with 
you ; but if you contend for a partial inspiration, an 
inspiration that extends to the great and fundamental 
truths it reveals, but deny that inspiration to its 
minor details, then should we be glad to see with 
what adroitness you will extricate yourself from this 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



349 



dilemma : The men whom infinite Wisdom selected 
for the purpose of making known this revelation had 
the ability of giving these details with minute accu- 
racy, or they had not that ability. If they had the 
ability, then have they, voluntarily and of set pur- 
pose, blundered and mixed God's truth with error. 
If they had not the ability, that fact must have been 
known to Him who selected them for this purpose ; 
and, consequently, it was his will that mistakes should 
mar his pages, and that a futile attempt should be 
made for the concord of truth with falsehood, light 
with darkness. Does such an opinion square with 
your • conceptions of God's immutable veracity, with 
your idea of him who is the Teuth ? 

It is contended again that the sacred writers do 
not speak with philosophical accuracy on the phe- 
nomena of nature ; and that fact is adduced against 
the idea of a plenary inspiration. To see this objec- 
tion in a clear light, let us suppose a profound phil- 
osopher attempting to explain to his children the 
wonders of the planetary system, and inquire, How 
is it to be done ? Most evidently, while he cautiously 
avoids stating anything palpably false, he must, of 
necessity, bring down his language to the level of 
their comprehension. He will talk of the rising and 
setting of the sun ; will it follow that he is ignorant 
of the revolution of the earth which causes that ap- 
pearance ? He may discourse of the firmament 
above us, and of the stars and planets over our heads ; 
is that evidence that he knows nothing of the globu- 
lar sphere on which we dwell ; or that he is ignorant, 
because to them he does not, cannot make plain all 



350 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. • 

that is known to himself? In the language of our 
author : 

" When Sir John Herschel asks his servants to 
send some one to wake him exactly at midnight, for 
the observation of the passage of some star over 
his meridian lens, does he think himself obliged to 
speak to them of the earth, of her rotation, and of 
the moment when she shall have brought their nadir 
into the plane of her orbit ? I think not. And if 
you should ever hear him converse, in the observatory 
of Greenwich, with the learned Ayrie, you would see 
that even in this sanctuary of science, the habitual 
language of these astronomers is still just like that of 
the Scriptures. For them, the stars rise, the equinoxes 
recede, the planets advance and are accelerated, stop 
and retrograde. Would you then have Moses speak 
to all the generations of men in a language more 
scientific than that of La Place, of Arago, and of 
Newton ? " 

We go farther. We contend that not only was it 
necessary that the sacred writers, on all philosophical 
subjects, should come down to the level of the com- 
prehension of those for whom they wrote, but that, 
if they had spoken of these things as they really are, 
that is, as they are seen by the infinite God, their reve- 
lation had been unintelligible even to the philosopher 
who has studied most patiently, and reasoned most 
profoundly. For what does the wise man know? 
Has he by searching found out God ? Has he found 
out the Almighty to perfection ? He cannot make 
his child comprehend those great truths which are 
established in his own mind by the force of acute 



THEOPNE USTY. 



351 



reasoning; while in intelligence, in everything, the 
child is infinitely nearer his level than he to Him 
who is unsearchable. And it will be always thus. 
We cannot set limits to man's scientific attainments. 
It is very possible that discoveries may yet be made 
which will cast all that have preceded them into the 
shade; and that language which will be perfectly 
plain to some Newton a thousand years hence, would 
be a dark enigma to us who live in the present age. 
Hence, while it is denied that any erroneous state- 
ment on philosophical subjects is to be found on the 
pages of the Bible, we see in the simplicity of its 
narratives and the popular style of its language, the 
wisdom of God condescending to the weakness of 
man ; the benignity of the great Father of the uni- 
verse speaking intelligibly to his " little ones." 

More than this : the sacred record, when studied 
with attention, is perpetually throwing out hints and 
affording glimpses of science and philosophy, which 
it is not its direct object to teach. We find, often, in 
the language and expressions of the sacred writers, a 
precision, an exactness, the like of which, in former 
ages, was nowhere seen. Nay, there are allusions to 
truths which have remained undiscovered from gene- 
ration to generation, and with which, beyond a doubt, 
in many instances, the writers themselves were unac- 
quainted. Was he who wrote the Book of Ecclesi- 
astes, for instance, aware of the circulation of the 
blood? Or is it God himself who is alluding to it 
where he speaks of "the bowl," and "the pitcher,' 5 
and " the fountain I " It is but little more than two 
hundred years since the discovery of the fact that 



352 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



the blood does circulate; and until that time, of 
course, much of the beauty and force of the passage 
was unappreciated, because unseen. Down to the 
days of Galileo, the gravity of the atmosphere was an 
unknown fact, yet it is written, " He looketh to the 
ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven, 
to make the weight for the winds /" or, more properly, 
to give to the air its weight. Job xxviii, 24, 25. 
Until the invention of the telescope, but a limited 
idea was conveyed by the promise made to Abraham, 
that his seed should be as the stars of heaven. Ptole- 
my fixed their number at a little more than a thous- 
and ; Herschel confirms the comparison of the sacred 
writers, who speak of them as innumerable, even like 
the sands upon the seashore. Moses, with what has 
appeared for ages unaccountable, if not a blunder, 
speaks of light as existing anterior to the creation of 
the sun. Newton finds it necessary to suppose, and 
some future philosopher will, in all probability, de- 
monstrate the fact, that the universe is pervaded by 
a subtile and elastic ether ; to which all the phenom- 
ena of light, and even of gravitation, may be attrib- 
uted. What is this earth upon which we dwell ? 
It is a plane surface, said the ancient philosophers ; 
flat and triangular, says the Shaster ; the mountains 
were made to hold it fast to its moorings, says the 
Koran ; and the divine Plato considered it an intelli- 
gent animal. What do the sacred writers, the pen- 
men of the great Creator, say ? " He set a compass 
(or, as the margin has it, a circle) upon the face of 
the depth," Prov. viii, 27 ; and, He sitteth upon the 
circle (or, as it might have been rendered, the 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



353 



SPHEEE) of the earth." Isa. xl, 22. And what are 
its foundations ? How is it upheld ? Job declared 
thousands of years before human science had rendered 
it safe to understand him literally : " He stretcheth 
out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the 
earth upon nothing" Job xxvi, 7. In that most 
remarkable passage in the Epistle of St. James, 
(i, 17,) is an allusion, and that merely incidental, to 
the subtle doctrine of the parallactic angle ; the 
importance of a knowledge of which, in measuring 
the planetary orbs, was unknown at the time in 
which he wrote, and for ages afterward. It is beyond 
a doubt the language, the ipsissima verba of God 
himself ; and there, as in other instances which we 
stay not to point out, and yet others now u dark with 
excessive light," but which the researches of future 
philosophers will render visible, we see and hear the 
great " Father of lights," the fountain of all knowl- 
edge, communicating with his children ; and, at the 
same time, giving glimpses that his knowledge is too 
wonderful for us, and that his ways are past finding 
out. 

It comes in place here to advert to the objections 
which have been urged against the miracle wrought 
in the days of Joshua, when it is said, "the sun 
stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley 
of Ajalon." Perhaps no single passage of the Bible 
has been more frequently branded as a palpable and 
manifest absurdity. It could only have been re- 
corded, we are told, by one utterly unacquainted 
with the planetary system ; and received as fact by 

none but the most credulous. True, such objections 

23 



354 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



have been again and again refuted ; but they reap- 
pear as often in the borrowed rags of witticism, the 
garb of ingenuous inquiry, or the solemn drapery of 
profound investigation. So far as they are urged by 
the scoffer and the skeptic, for the purpose of invali- 
dating the divine inspiration of the entire Bible, they 
claim from us, at present, no attention. In their 
vocabulary the epithets, absurd, impossible, imply 
simply, that the acts thus characterized are out of the 
ordinary course of nature ; that is, miraculous. Now 
it is not only conceded that the event under consider- 
ation was a miracle, but that is the character given 
to it by the sacred writer : " The Lord hearkened to 
the voice of a man : for the Lord fought for Israel." 
While, however, we waste no words with the avowed 
disbeliever in the revelation which God has given us, 
we must protest against the readiness with which 
well-meaning Christians unite with the scoffer in 
throwing doubts upon the narrative of the sacred 
writers. " It was not an enemy, for then I could 
have borne it." . . . " I was wounded in the house 
of my friends." It is they who profess to believe 
that nothing is too hard for the Lord, and that the 
Bible is his book, who seek to render that book pala- 
table to those who deny the divinity of its claims 
and question the omnipotence of its author. Alas 
for them ! where will they find a stopping-place ? 
Admit that in the sacred volume are to be found 
unauthorized quotations from uninspired poets, fan- 
ciful narratives from the Book of Jasher, and absurd 
stories, calculated only for the astonishment of a half- 
civilized people ; and the enemy will not fail to take 



THEOPXEUSTY. 



355 



advantage of your admission, and assume the right 
to denounce as absurdities everything which his per- 
verted reason cannot fathom, and which comes in 
collision with the corrupt propensities of his nature. 
We choose to enter into no explanation as to how 
this thing was done. He, who has all power in 
heaven and on earth, could counteract, for the time 
being, all the laws of matter ; and most assuredly 
had the ability to prevent any of those consequences 
which man, in the plenitude of his self-sufficiency, 
declares must have ensued when the sun stood still 
in mid-heaven. "We are no more concerned about 
the modus operandi in this matter than we are about 
the precise nature of the efficacy of the clay oint- 
ment used by Christ in opening the eyes of the blind 
man, or the bulk of the fragments remaining after 
the thousands had been fed with the loaves and fishes. 
" I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou 
didst it." 

The objection arising from the variations which 
have been found in different manuscripts, it will be 
seen, does not lie against the plenary inspiration of 
the original Scriptures. Errors may, or may not, 
have crept into the copies subsequently made. Tran- 
scribers may have blundered, and translators may 
ha ve failed to give 'the precise meaning of the origi- 
nal. None of these things affect the question : Did 
the whole Bible come from God ? The integrity, the 
accuracy, the faithfulness, of any copy or version, is 
a matter totally different from the divinity of the 
original. It is not to be concealed, however, that 
just here, with many, the difficulty presses with the 



856 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS, 



greatest force. Admitting that the original came 
from God, of what advantage is it, when we are 
assured that errors abound in the copies we now 
have ; that the versions differ from one another ; that 
various readings, to the number of thirty thousand, 
have been detected by those who have critically ex- 
amined the various manuscripts that have come down 
to our day ? Truly, this looks formidable. Thirty 
thousand variations ! But what are they ? Years of 
the most patient and persevering toil have been spent 
in comparing and collating, in weighing, in dissect- 
ing, in scanning with microscopic eye, the chapters, 
the verses, the letters, yea, and the very punctuation, 
of every version and manuscript known to be in ex- 
istence. Kennicott, Michaelis, and Houbigant upon 
the Old Testament, and Griesbach, JBengel, Wet- 
stein, upon the New, with a host of others, and 
they men of profound learning and the most aston- 
ishing patience, have pored for years over the ver- 
sions in the Arabic, Syriac, Armenian ; have ex- 
plored the convents of Mount Athos, of Asiatic 
Turkey, and of Egypt, rejoicing at the discovery of 
a new manuscript, " as one that flndeth great spoil," 
and, adding it to those already under examination, 
have published to the world the result of this pro- 
tracted, and laborious, and oft-reheated investigation. 
And what is that result ? We have said, variations 
amounting to thirty thousand. But what are they ? 
Differences in the shade of expression ; the omission 
or addition of an article ; the repetition of a noun or 
a pronoun ; an article in place of a pronoun, and 
vice versa : a difference in the order of a sentence, a 



THEOPXEUSTY. 



357 



variety in the spelling, the position of an adjective 
before or after a substantive ; in short, variations, 
many of them so minnte as to escape observation, 
save by those who search for them ; so trivial as to 
be utterly imperceptible in a translation ; and so un- 
important, altogether, as to justify the opinion of a 
learned man of our own day when he says : " In 
truth, if we except these brilliant negative conclusions 
to which they have come, the direct result obtained 
by so many lives of men consumed in these immense 
researches appears to be a nullity; and we might 
say, that time, talent, and science have been foolishly 
spent in arriving there." 

Even so. If we except those brilliant negative 
conclusions ! But by their establishment the Church 
and the world have gained more than they could 
have done, had the labors of these men taken any 
other direction whatever. The battery which had 
been erected against the sacred volume has been 
turned successfully against its assailants. What was 
once urged as an argument to disprove the integrity 
of the Scriptures, is now seen to be testimony, direct 
and conclusive, to the fact that the God who gave 
has taken care to preserve, in all its brightness, " a 
lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path." In 
this respect the dying words of Moses have been ful- 
filled ; and we may exclaim, " Happy art thou, O 
Israel : thine enemies have been found liars unto thee, 
and thou hast trodden upon their high places." The 
learned Bengel, who, at first tormented and in grief 
with reference to the integrity of the sacred text, re- 
solved to devote his life to a thorough examination of 



358 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



the subject, for which he was admirably fitted by 
genius and by education, thus writes to his pupil, at 
the close of his labors : 

" Eat simply the bread of the Scriptures, such as 
you find it ; and be not disturbed, if perchance you 
find here and there a little fragment of the millstone 
which has fallen into it. Tou may now dismiss all 
the doubts which once so horribly tormented me. If 
the Holy Scriptures, which have been copied so often, 
and which have so often passed through the imperfect 
hands of fallible men, were absolutely without varia- 
tions, the miracle would be so great that faith in it 
would be no more faith. I am astonished, on the 
contrary, that there has resulted from all the tran- 
scribings no greater number of different readings." 

But some ask, and the acute Coleridge is of the 
number, Are the inconclusive reasonings, the un- 
meaning truisms, the malignant effusions found in 
the Book of God — in the mouth of Job's friends, for 
instance, and in the lips of Satan — are they to be 
accounted the dictates of Infinite Wisdom ? And are 
we to be classed with the revilers of His book because 
we will not, cannot thus receive them ? To this the 
answer is easy. We shudder with you, at the blas- 
phemy which would charge upon the God of the 
Bible the absurdities, the follies, the falsehoods de- 
clared therein to have been uttered and perpetrated. 
We are very far from advocating or believing the 
dogma that "all that is in the Bible is religion." 
On the contrary, our position is, that whatever is 
stated there to have been said or done, vjas said or 
done ; that it was said or done by those to whom it 



THEOPISTEUSTY. 



359 



is there attributed, exactly as stated ; and that it is 
all thus recorded by the Holy One precisely as it 
would have been had he written it all, as he did the 
decalogue, with his own fingers. There is a vast dif- 
ference between a perfect saying and the perfect 
record of a saying ; between the dictates of infallible 
wisdom, and the sayings and doings of fallible crea- 
tures infallibly recorded. The objection, sanctioned 
though it be by great names, is a man of straw which 
we are ready, if it be necessary, to assist in knocking 
down. 

There remains for consideration yet one other ob- 
jection to the inspiration of the Scriptures. It is 
derived from their own statements. The apostle 
Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, appar- 
ently makes a distinction between what he says on 
his own authority, and what, he tells us, is an express 
revelation from the Lord. Thus in the 25th verse of 
the seventh chapter he says : " Now concerning vir- 
gins I have no commandment of the Lord ; yet I 
give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy 
of the Lord." In the tenth verse of the same chap- 
ter he says, " Unto the married, I command, yet not 
I, but the Lord :" and in verse 12, " But to the rest 
speak I, not the Lord." The general opinion of com- 
mentators on these passages seems to be, that Paul 
was here making a distinction between what he says 
as an inspired apostle and what he says as a private 
Christian : and hence the argument is, that all Scrip- 
ture is not given by inspiration of God, but is a 
mixture of inspired and uninspired directions to the 
Church, 



360 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



If the argument be sound, it will follow, with refer- 
once to the direction given in verse 12 : " If any 
brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be 
pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away ;" 
that a brother thus situated may, if it please him, 
put away his unbelieving wife without transgressing 
any commandment of the Lord. He will, indeed, 
thereby act contrary to the advice given by the apos- 
tle, but his advice, apart from his inspiration, may be 
rejected certainly without sin. True, " the brother," 
by so doing, will violate the express command of 
Jesus Christ, (Matt, v, 32, etc,,) but still he may 
plead that the apostle, who had the mind of the Spirit, 
does, by the language under consideration, teach that 
he may thus act even toward a wife who is " pleased 
to dwell with him," without incurring any greater 
guilt than that of simply rejecting uninspired advice ; 
for the apostle's language is, " To the rest speak I, 
not the Lord." 

So, again, in the 25th verse, where the apostle 
says, " I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I 
give my judgment ;" if he means to be understood as 
speaking merely his own sentiments, in contradistinc- 
tion to the directions which he gives under the inspi- 
ration of God, it will follow, most conclusively, that 
his direction in verse 27 teaches that he who is bound 
to a wife may, or may not, " seek to be loosed," with 
no greater blame in the one case or credit in the 
other than that of rejecting or following the advice 
of an uninspired Christian ; or, at any rate, of one 
who does not give this advice under the inspiration 
of God. It is most manifest, however, that these 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



361 



and similar absurdities could not have been intended 
by the apostle ; and, consequently, such interpreta- 
tions must be based upon a misapprehension of his 
meaning. Our author's sentiments on this subject 
are clear, and happily expressed : 

" When the passages are more closely examined, it 
will be found that they cannot be adduced as a proof 
against the doctrine of a full inspiration. Far from 
limiting the divinity of apostolic language, these 
verses, on the contrary, speak as only the fullest and 
most sovereign inspiration could authorize. St. Paul 
could speak thus, only by placing his epistles, if I 
may so say, as St. Peter has done, (2 Peter iii, 16,) on 
the level with the other sacred writings ; nay, 
we must say, above them, (inasmuch as we there 
hear a more recent expression of the will of our Lord.) 
Let us examine this point. What does the apostle of 
Jesus Christ seek in this chapter ? He treats of three 
cases of conscience ; concerning one of them, God 
has commanded nothing and interdicted nothing. 
' So, then, he that giveth her in marriage, doth well.' 
I speak this by permission, and not of command- 
ment ; but as an apostle I give from the Lord merely 
counsel : and he is careful to add in the fortieth verse, 
' I think also that I have the spirit of the Lord.' 
The Lord would leave you free herein, says the apos- 
tle : he will place no snare in your path ; and if you 
care not to follow the general advice that is given 
you, you violate no commandment and commit no 
sin ; only, he that marrieth, doeth well ; he that mar- 
rieth not, doeth better. In regard to the other case, 
however, be careful ; for here is a commandment 



362 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



of the Lord. He has already made known his 
will, (Matt, v, 31, 32 ; Mai. ii, 14,) and I have noth- 
ing new to declare unto you. Both the Old Tes- 
tament and Jesus Christ have spoken. It is not, 
therefore, I, the apostle of Jesus Christ, it is the 
Lord, who has already made known his will unto 
you. 

" For the third case, that of the brother who finds 
himself bound to an unbelieving wife, you had a 
commandment from the Lord in the Old Testament. 
/ revoke it, for I ham the spirit of the Lord. I 
abolish, then, the former commandment, and am 
charged to replace it by a contrary order. It is not 
the Lord (verse 12) who forbids you (by any previous 
precept) to put away an unbelieving wife ; it is 1^ 
Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by 
Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him 
from the dead. We see, then, with the clearness of 
noon-day : the apostle, instead of appealing to the 
ancient word of the Lord, revokes it, to replace it by 
a contrary order ; so that this passage, very far from 
weakening the inspiration, confirms it strongly ; 
since it would have been nothing less than an out- 
rageous blasphemy, if the apostle had not felt that 
in using this language he was the mouth of God ; 
and if he had dared to say by his own authority, It 
is not the Lord, it is L I myself tell you : if any 
man have an unbelieving wife, let him not send her 
away. The Lord had given (under the old dispensa- 
tion) a contrary commandment. Deut. xxiv, 2 ; 
1 Kings xi, 2. These verses of St. Paul, then, far 
from authorizing the supposition of any mingling of 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



363 



human wisdom in the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
ment, are there to attest that, in their epistles, and in 
the most familiar details of their epistles, the apostles 
were the month of God, and ranked themselves, not 
only as successors of Moses and the ancient prophets, 
but even above them ; as a second message from God 
must supersede that which was before it, and as the 
New Testament must surpass the Old, if not in ex- 
cellence, at least in authority." 

It is gratifying to be enabled to add, in corrobora- 
tion of these sentiments, the opinion of Dr. Adam 
Clarke, who, as we have already intimated, is not an 
advocate for the plenary inspiration of the sacred 
Scriptures, in the sense in which we use that phrase. 
In his note on one of the verses under considera- 
tion, (Com. on 1 Cor. vii, 12,) this learned expositor 
says : 

" As if he (the apostle) had said, For what I have 
already spoken, I have the testimony of the Lord by 
Moses ; and of my own Lord and Master, Christ. 
But for the directions which I am now about to give, 
there is no written testimony ; and I deliver them* 
now for the first time. These words do not intimate 
that the apostle was not now under the influences 
of the divine Spirit ; but, that there was nothing 
in the sacred writings which bore directly on this 
point." 

Wesley, in his notes on verse 25 of the same chap- 
ter, is still more explicit : " The apostles wrote 
nothing which was not divinely inspired. But with 
this difference : sometimes they had a particular reve- 
lation, and a special commandment ; at other times 



364 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



they wrote from the divine light which abode with 
them, the standing treasure of the Spirit of God. 
And this also was not their private opinion, but a 
divine rule of faith and practice. As one whom 
God hath made faithful in my apostolic office, who, 
therefore, faithfully deliver what I receive from 
him? 

We have dwelt the longer upon this objection, not 
only because many who have written for the purpose 
of enlightening the world on the mysteries of God's 
revelation have conceded the point, and have based 
arguments upon it; but because we readily admit 
that if such be the fact — if the sacred writers them- 
selves declare that sometimes they were left to the 
utterance of their own thoughts, and permitted to 
incorporate them with the thoughts of God — then is 
our plea for the full and complete inspiration of the 
sacred record totally annihilated, and every argument 
that can be advanced on this side of the question 
stripped of its power. 

We inquire, then, what do the sacred writers them- 
selves say upon the subject of the inspiration under 
which they wrote % Will it be reasoning in a circle 
to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures by the 
Scriptures themselves ? It might be so considered, 
were our argument with the atheist or the deist ; but 
that is not the case. Our starting point is the authen- 
ticity of the Old and New Testaments. It is admit- 
ted that the writers were men of truth ; that they 
knew what they say they knew : what, then, do they 
say on the subject under consideration % 

We have already more than once adverted to the 



THEOPISTEUSTY. 



365 



declaration of Paul in his Second Epistle to Timo- 
thy, (iii, 16,) " All Scripture is given by inspiration 
of God." Of course, lie refers to the Old Testa- 
ment, of which he says, in the preceding verse, Tim- 
othy had known from his childhood. It is a matter 
of no consequence to the argument whether we adopt 
our authorized translation or read the passage with 
the transposition of the verb : " All Scripture given 
by inspiration of God is profitable," , etc. In either 
case, he is speaking, be it observed, of the Scripture ; 
that it is not of the thoughts, nor the facts, but of 
what is written, (ypa^,) and the writing, yea, the let- 
ters which compose that writing, (ra iepa ypafifiara, as 
he has it in the preceding verse,) were given by in- 
spiration of God. It is the writings, too, of which 
the apostle predicates the epithet holy, in alluding to 
the early studies of his son in the Gospel. 

Of the same import is the testimony of St. Peter. 
Of the prophetical writers of the Old Testament, he 
says, in his First Epistle, (i, 11,) " The spirit of Christ 
was in them ;" and in his Second Epistle, (i, 20,) he 
declares that "no prophecy of the Scriptures is of any 
private interpretation ; for the prophecy came not in 
old time by the will of man (proceeded not, says 
Adam Clarke, from the prophet's own knowledge or 
invention,) "but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." Here let it be noted, 
the apostle is speaking of the written word, the proph- 
ecy of the Scripture. No particle of this is of any 
private interpretation ; but in the whole of it the 
Holy Ghost speaks by men chosen by himself for the 
purpose. This language cannot be confined simply 



366 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



to the predictions ; for, as is well known, the word 
prophecy, both in the Old Testament and in the 
New, is applied to any religions teaching or exhorta- 
tion. Thus, "Eldad and Medad prophesied in the 
camp ;" and Moses, when requested to forbid them, 
replied, " "Would God that all the Lord's people 
were prophets" JSTum. xi, 26, 29. In 1 Chron. xxv, 1, 
we read of those who should prophesy with harps, 
with psalteries, and with cymbals ;" and " he that 
prophesieth" says Paul, (1 Cor. xiv, 3,) " speaketh 
unto men to edification, to. exhortation, and comfort." 
Now, then, if no prophecy of the Scriptures, nothing 
written therein for edification, or exhortation, or com- 
fort, came by the will of man ; and if, in them all, 
holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost, we see not with what propriety it can be con- 
tended that any part or portion of the Old Testament 
is the mere private uninspired opinion or assertion of 
those who wrote. 

In further corroboration of our position, it is de- 
clared in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that " God 
spake unto the fathers by the prophets," chap i, 1. 
Had there been anything less in the apostle's mind 
than a plenary inspiration, he would not have used 
this language. If God speaks, the words spoken 
must be God's. So, also, he " who walked in all the 
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blame- 
less," the holy Zacharias, " filled," at the time, " with 
the Holy Ghost," and "prophesying" declares that 
" God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets." 
Luke i, 70. 

On that memorable occasion, when the apostle to 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



367 



the Gentiles had reached Rome, after a perilous jour- 
ney, and had there labored with little success to "per- 
suade " his kinsmen after the flesh " concerning Jesus, 
both out of the law of Moses and out of the proph- 
ets, from morning until evening," he dismissed them 
with a bitter quotation from Isaiah ; the language of 
which he attributes to God himself, " "Well spake 
the Holy Ghost, by Esaias the prophet, unto our 
fathers," etc. Acts xxviii, 25. Peter declares to the 
assembled disciples, previous to the election of a suc- 
cessor to the traitor Judas, that " this Scripture must 
needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by 
the mouth of David, spake." Acts i, 16. And " the 
company " of the disciples, on the liberation of Peter 
and John, lift up their voice, and in their thanksgiv- 
ing assert that the "God who made heaven, and 
earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, had said" 
by the mouth of his servant David, " Why did the 
heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things ? " 
Acts iv, 24. 

It is unnecessary to multiply quotations from the 
writers of the Old Testament on this point. Moses 
declares that the Lord said unto him, " Go, and I 
will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou 
shalt say." Exod. iv, 12. And hence we hear him 
repeatedly exclaim, "Thus saith the Lord." Jere- 
miah tells us that he declined to go with a message 
to the people until " the Lord put forth his hand and 
touched my mouth, and said unto me, Behold, I have 
put my words in thy mouth." Jer. i, 9. So, the 
commission of Ezekiel : " Get thee unto the house of 
Israel, and speak with my words unto them." Ezek. 



368 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



iii, 4. David, the anointed of the God of Jacob and 
the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, " The Spirit of the 
Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue, 5 ' 
2 Sam. xxiii, 1, 2 ; a declaration attested by Jesus 
Christ himself, who assures us that " David spake by 
the Holy Ghost," Mark xii, 36. 

The argument from these passages we suppose to 
be sufficiently clear. It is briefly this. Did not the 
inspiration of the sacred writers extend to the man- 
ner as well as the matter, to words as well as things, 
there would be a manifest impropriety in the quota- 
tions referred to ; an impropriety which, we hesitate 
not to say, would very materially impair our confi- 
dence in the accuracy of their authors. Such an 
impropriety cannot, of course, be admitted by any 
who take the Bible for their rule of faith, and hence 
our conclusion is irresistible. That conclusion is 
strengthened, moreover, by the fact that nowhere do 
the sacred writers intimate anything to the contrary ; 
and, in the only passages of the New Testament on 
which the opponents of a plenary inspiration rely, 
we have seen that a very good sense, to say the 
least, may be given to the apostle's language, with- 
out involving him in the absurdity of self-contra- 
diction. 

Our attention has as yet been confined to the writ- 
ings of the former dispensation. The evidence that 
the authors of the New Testament wrote also under 
the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is equally 
satisfactory. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, claims this inspiration for the manner, no 
less than the matter : " We spake not in the words 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



369 



which man's wisdom teacheth, but " (in the words) 
" which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Chap. ii 3 13. He 
expressly declares the teaching of himself and his 
colleagues to be the word of God : " Ye received it 
not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the 
word of God, which effectually worketh also in you 
that believe." 1 Thess. ii, 13. The promise of the 
Great Head of the Church to his apostles was, that 
the Holy Spirit should guide them into all truth. 
That he would do this, not by partially enlightening 
them, or by the suggestion of ideas which they might 
clothe in their own language, is evident from his di- 
rections with reference to the persecutions they would 
be called to endure for his " name's sake :" " Take ye 
no thought how or what ye shall answer, or what ye 
shall say ; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit 
of your Father which sjpealceth in you." It is not 
probable that He who furnished words that were to 
be uttered in the hearing of a few persecuting rulers 
and magistrates, and which would be forgotten 
almost as soon as spoken, would have left them to 
themselves in the preparation of instructions and ex- 
hortations destined for his Church and for the world 
until the consummation of all things. 

The Scripture argument might be extended ; but 
we hasten to submit a few additional considerations 
which will commend themselves to the attention of 
all who desire to come to a correct conclusion on the 
question at issue. 

And first, on the supposition that a part of the 

Bible was given by the direct and plSiary inspiration 

of the Holy One ; and that a part was not thus 

24 



370 



KEVIEWS AKD ESSAYS. 



given, it will devolve upon the advocates of that 
opinion to mark out for us the dividing line ; to tell 
us what God says, and what are merely the unauthor- 
ized dicta of Moses, or of David, or of Paul. It 
would be a convenient thing, wouldn't it ? if they 
who have the ability would prepare, for the benefit of 
those who seek to know God's will, a copy of the 
Bible wherein those parts which were written by His 
inspiration should be printed in a different type — say 
a larger letter. "We are serious when we claim the 
right to demand this service at their hands ; and, 
perhaps, nothing but the absurdity of the undertak- 
ing will open their eyes to the lamentable conse- 
quences that must ensue were their professed opinion 
carried out in practice. We will not ask what kind 
of a Bible would be the result of the combined wis- 
dom of those who deny that the whole of it came 
from God, as the supposition that they will ever 
agree among themselves is an absurdity ; but we will 
ask, What kind of a Bible have they now ? What is 
their rule of faith and practice ? The sacred Scrip- 
tures ? No, verily ; but those parts of them which 
they believe to have been written by inspiration of 
God ; which have been summoned before the tribu- 
nal of their judgment, and have stood the test of their 
investigation. Does the Unitarian, the Universalist, 
the Papist, ask anything more ? And can you, in 
the common courtesy of life, to say nothing of the 
charity of the Gospel, grant him anything less ? Tou 
question the inspiration by which Luke inserted in 
his Gospel the genealogy of Jesus ; your neighbor, 
quite as good a scholar as yourself, denies the divinity 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



371 



of Christ, and tells you he doubts the inspiration of 
John when he wrote the introduction to his Gospel. 
Again, you are pleased to find rabbinical superstitions 
in the Epistle of St. James, if, perchance, you will 
not venture, with the father of the Reformation, to 
brand the whole of it as chaffy — epistola straminea. 
Is it wonderful that the Universalist finds a solution 
to passages which speak of a future punishment in 
those same rabbinisms, and prefers to apply Luther's 
epithet to declarations like that of the Baptist when 
he says, " He that cometh after me . . . will burn 
up the chaff with unquenchable fire ? " Once more. 
"With what consistency do you condemn the Roman- 
ist who tells us that he believes as the Church be- 
lieves, and that he leaves it to her to settle what 
portions of the Bible are the word of God, and what 
are merely the traditions of uninspired men ; when 
you claim for yourself the authority which he, with 
quite as much faith and more humility, yields up to 
those who ought to know more about it than himself? 
Look into this matter more closely, and tell us, if you 
can, what is the precise difference between taking 
for the rule of faith the Bible and tradition on the 
one side, and making that rule to consist partly of the 
words of God, and partly of mere human sentiments 
on the other. 

In the next place we remark, that the hypothesis 
which denies that the style, the language, the words 
of the sacred writers were dictated by the Holy 
Spirit, and confines inspiration to the subject-matter, 
while it perplexes the reason with doubts, does not 
relieve the supposed difficulty for which it was in • 



372 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



vented. It is perplexing. Human language may, 
or may not, convey the precise shade of meaning 
which the Holy Spirit intended. If He did not con- 
trol the entire phraseology of the writers, what assur- 
ance have we that they may not, in one place, have 
spoken a little too strongly, and have varied from 
the precise idea suggested to them in another ? It is 
well known that even when they intend to express 
the same sentiments, writers differ in their choice of 
expression and in their style; and this difference, 
although it might be of little importance in a fictitious 
narrative, or even in the relation of historic facts, 
becomes momentous when man's eternal interests are 
at stake. "We want a clear and steady light, not 
only upon the beginning, but all through the pathway 
to the skies. We want positive certainty as to what 
God says, and it is scarcely possible to conceive of 
anything more bewildering and perplexing to a sin- 
cere inquirer than the flickering ignis fatuus, which 
increases just in proportion to our uncertainty on the 
question, Who speaks ? and, Is it spoken just as He 
would have it ? 

But the hypothesis does not relieve the difficulty 
which good men have found, or fancied, in the doc- 
trine of a plenary inspiration. That difficulty arises 
from two sources : first, there are matters of trivial 
moment which, it is said, might have been as well 
recorded without as with this inspiration ; and sec- 
ondly, it is inconceivable how God should dictate the 
very words used by the sacred writers. In reply to 
the former, while it is admitted that much of what is 
found in the Bible, particularly in the historical parts 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



373 



of the Old Testament, might have been written with- 
out inspiration elsewhere, the question is, How came 
these things there? and being there, they lose that 
trivial character which might otherwise belong to 
them. Then, again, it is, we think, rather more dif- 
ficult to suppose an inspiration which does not, than 
one which does, extend to the phraseology. How are 
ideas communicated without words ? Is not the con- 
nection between thought and language inseparable % 
Perhaps not. But it is easier, speaking after the 
manner of men, to communicate words than ideas ; 
and hence, the supposition that the Almighty sug- 
gested the thoughts, and not the phraseology, instead 
of lessening, absolutely increases the difficulty, and 
increases it unnecessarily. It is inexplicable, say 
you, how God communicated the words of the Scrip- 
tures. Granted. It is none the less, if it be not 
more, difficult to explain how he furnished ideas with- 
out words. 

It is undeniable, moreover, and this is an argument 
of much force, that the sacred writers, so far from 
clothing the ideas they received in language of their 
own, did not, in many instances, understand the full 
import of w T hat they wrote. Daniel records what he 
hears, and says, " I heard, but I understood not." 
Chap, xii, 8. Numerous passages might be cited from 
the other prophets — from the Psalmist especially — 
the purport of which was evidently not perceived by 
themselves, or by any one else, until He of whom 
they wrote made the application to himself. It is 
written twice, for instance, in the historical books of 
Moses, that a bone of the passover shall not be 



374 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



broken. (Exod. xii, 46 ; Num. ix, 12.) Not until 
Christ's death was it known that these apparently 
trivial and unimportant directions were prophetic of 
an event which, so far as human agency was con- 
cerned, might or might not have taken place. When 
did " they part his (David's) garments among them, 
and cast lots upon his vesture ? " What burial-place, 
and what man of wealth were in the mind of the 
evangelical prophet when he wrote, " He made his 
grave with the wicked, and with the rich, in his 
death ? " Did the writer of the Book of Exodus, or 
Asaph, to whom is attributed the eighty-second 
psalm, know the use which Christ would afterward 
make of their apparently casual remark relative to 
the gods of the people ? (John x, 34 ; Exod. xxii, 28 ; 
Psalm lxxxii, 6.) But it is needless to multiply ques- 
tions of this kind. We have the testimony of an 
apostle himself to the fact under consideration. " The 
prophets, who prophesied of the grace that should 
come unto you," are represented by St. Peter as 
'* searching what the Spirit of Christ, vjhich was in 
them, did signify, when it testified beforehand the 
sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." 
The prophets themselves searched into the meaning 
of their own writings ! Why ? Because God gave 
ideas which they clothed in their own language ? 
Absurd. In the very nature of the case, ideas must 
be fully comprehended before it is possible to trans- 
fer them from the mind to paper ; whereas an aman- 
uensis may or may not understand what is dictated 
by his employer. To him who put this essay in type, 
some parts of it may have been perfectly plain, and 



THEOPNE U STY. 



375 



others strangely mysterious ; his business was to fol- 
low copy : so, to compare small things with great, on 
no other principle can the anxiety of the prophets to 
search out the hidden meaning of what themselves 
had written be explained and accounted for. 

Again, to illustrate the gratuitous supposition that 
while parts of any prophecy, or narrative, or epistle, 
were written from the lips of God, other portions 
originated wholly with man ; let us suppose, for a 
moment, that the printer had interspersed through- 
out these pages sentiments of his own ; here an ex- 
planatory sentence, and there clauses and expletives 
ornamental or exegetical ; to whom would the author- 
ship belong ? In these additions there need be noth- 
ing false or absurd ; and then you have a case pre- 
cisely parallel with the hypothesis that a part of the 
Bible came from God, and a part was written with- 
out his dictation by men who were, nevertheless, 
" kept from any gross absurdity or fundamental 
error." We say the cases are parallel. In the former 
you could not know whose sentiments you were pe- 
rusing ; in the latter you are equally ignorant ; and, 
in fact, have no Bible, no book of God. What you 
are pleased to call such is, by the supposition, con- 
verted into a volume of doubtful authorship, contain- 
ing, with " the Word of God," more or less " Apoc- 
rypha," according to the reader's judgment ; that is, 
in many instances, his fancy or imagination. 

Did Jesus Christ, by precept or example, give any 
countenance to this kind of eclecticism ? Did the 
great Teacher, when he had occasion to refer to the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament, ever intimate that 



376 



EE VIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



any part or any sentence lacked the divine impress, 
and might be considered as the sentiment merely of 
him who wrote? Far from it. Throughout his 
whole history he treats all that is written in the book 
of the law, in the prophets and in the psalms, with 
equal respect, exemplifying the meaning of his own 
declaration on an occasion already referred to : " The 
Scripture cannot be broken." Previous to his 
entrance upon his public ministry he foils the tempt- 
er and drives him back to his own hell ; not, as he 
might have done, by a withering glance of his eye, 
nor by an express command from his lips alone ; nor 
yet by a burning sentence, revealing a new truth ; 
but by a simple statement, thrice repeated, in which 
he refers to the words and the letters of the sacred 
volume : " It is written." And where is it writ- 
ten ? Truly, in that book which, as its name implies, 
contains a repetition of what had been already re- 
vealed; and which, of the entire Pentateuch, the 
advocates of a partial inspiration might otherwise 
have adduced as not having required the dictation of 
the Holy Spirit. So, when the Pharisees complained 
of his " doing that which was not lawful to do on 
the Sabbath-day," he referred them to that which is 
written, and quoted from the minor prophets. He 
charges ignorance of the Scriptures upon the Saddu- 
cees as the reason of their doubting the resurrection 
of the dead ; and, instead of proving by a new argu- 
ment, or even authoritatively declaring, the immor- 
tality of the soul, he refers them to what Moses had 
written. It is so all through his ministry. Upon 
the cross, he yields not up his spirit until the pro- 



THEOPNEUSTY. 



377 



phetic declaration of the Psalmist is fulfilled to the 
very letter ; and, after his resurrection from the dead, 
in that last personal interview with his disciples, their 
hearts burn within them, not as they receive new 
views of doctrinal truth, or listen to vivid descriptions 
of the eternal world, but as he " explains to them the 
Scriptures as he says unto them, ".Thus it is writ- 
ten" and shows the necessity that " all things con- 
cerning himself must be fulfilled which were written 
in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the 
psalms." 

With these facts before him, the reader may ask 
himself the question, Did J esus Christ believe in the 
plenary inspiration of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures ? Does his language, or his conduct, anywhere 
intimate anything like a belief in a partial inspira- 
tion ? Or, on the contrary, do they not infallibly 
lead to the conclusion, that in His opinion the author 
of the Bible is the author of every verse, and word, 
and letter ; just as He who made the world made 
every leaf, every blade of grass, every little grain of 
sand upon the sea-shore ? 

It has been no part of our design to discuss the 
question, Which are the writings that deserve the 
epithet sacred? or, What constitutes the Book of 
God ? We agree with those who have no doubts on 
that subject ; who receive all the canonical books of 
the Old and New Testaments, and are satisfied from 
internal evidence, as well as from the voice of the 
Church, that the Bible is God's book. It matters 
not, then, that within the compass of that volume are, 
confessedly, " many things hard to be understood 



378 



EEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



many for the insertion of which we see not the pro- 
priety, and more that appear perfectly unnecessary. 
It is just so in his other great volume, the book of 
nature. We see around us venomous reptiles, insig- 
nificant insects, repulsive zoophytes. It becomes us 
as little to question the handiwork of the Almighty 
in the one case as in the other ; but, in both, 
equally to bow in reverence to that Almighty Being 
who is unsearchable, and whose ways are past find- 
ing out. 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



379 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



The volume named at the head of this article is, 
or ought to be, in the library of every scholar. Our 
object, therefore, is not to call to it the reader's atten- 
tion, nor to review its merits or scan its faults. On 
the contrary, as preachers sometimes use a passage 
of Scripture, we have chosen it as a theme which, by 
a little aid from the imagination, may be supposed to 
have suggested the train of remarks in which we 
purpose to indulge. To continue the figure, we may 
not allow ourselves, even when discoursing from a 
mere motto, to take too wild a flight; but if we 
would gain attention, some congruity between the 
text and the subject must be preserved ; and, as 
ought to be the aim of all public speakers and writ- 
ers, we shall endeavor not only to amuse, but to pro- 
duce some useful and lasting impression. 

Our subject is, of course, the English language : 
its beauty, its expressiveness, and its power. 

Our mother tongue ! we love it ; and pleasant 
though it be to peruse the pages of the foreigner — as 
it is delightful to visit distant lands — there is always 

* English Synonyms ; with Copious Illustrations and Explanations, 
drawn from the best Writers. By George Crabb, M.A., author of 
the Universal Technological Dictionary, and the Universal Historical 
Dictionary. 8vo. 



380 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



the charm of home, with all its witchery, in the good 
old Anglo-Saxon of our fathers. Very like the con- 
tempt which springs up in every breast for the man 
who reviles his country, are our feelings, spontaneous 
and irrepressible, toward him who slanders " his own 
tongue wherein he was born." He has, it may be, a 
smattering of French, and the English, he tells us, is 
deficient in gracefulness ; he has heard, too, that it 
lacks the harmonious sweetness of the Italian ; and 
he takes it for granted that the German far exceeds 
it in metaphysical vigor, and the Spanish in pompous 
rotundity. Or, perchance, he is a devoted admirer of 
the ancients ; he reads Virgil and Cicero in the orig- 
inal ; he pores over the pages of Tacitus and Thucyd- 
ides, and revels amid the glowing beauties of De- 
mosthenes and Homer. "What then ? Is it necessary 
to slander the living in order that he may enjoy the 
dead? Shall he ransack the dictionary in search of 
contemptuous epithets to be applied to his native lan- 
guage ? Language, did we say ? He is not satisfied 
with declaring that, in contrast with every other dia- 
lect, ancient or modem, the English is guttural, harsh, 
hissing ; he has discovered that it is no language at 
all ; it is a mere tongue. 

Fortunately, men of this stamp do not write much ; 
or if they do, publishers are cautious, and their man- 
uscripts seldom see the light. Occasionally, however, 
self-desperate, they print on their own account ; or, 
through the kindness of some inexperienced book- 
seller, the public are favored with a small volume, in 
which the reader is permitted to see how men of 
genius can smooth down the roughness, and mellow 



ENGLISH SYXOXYMS. 



381 



the harshness, of our nervous Anglo-Saxon. This is 
done by the use of what are called euphemisms / and 
by Latinizing and Frenchifying common phrases. 

Although these improvers of the language do not 
often succeed in ushering into the world an entire 
volume, the periodical press affords a frequent oppor- 
tunity for the display of their peculiar talent. That 
class denominated Annuals seems to be an especial 
favorite, insomuch that no one who opens their gilded 
outsides may hope to find on their snow-white pages 
anything masculine in sense or sound. Take hold of 
the next " Gem," or a Wreath," or " Amulet," and 
whether the article you attempt to read be entitled a 
Eevery, or a Yision, or a Romance, or Stanzas to 
the probability is that your ingenuity will be 
tasked to find out the writer's meaning ; and when 
you have discovered it, you will marvel why so com- 
mon a thing could not have been expressed in common 
words. But the language is English ; you will find 
it all in Webster's quarto dictionary, with the excep- 
tion of a few expressions from the author's own mint, 
and their meaning, if you are very inquisitive, per- 
haps you may guess. But the Annuals are a privi- 
leged class ; the aristocracy in the republic of letters. 
We may pardon a little stilted affectation in them, 
just as we cannot afford anything more severe than a 
smile at the rich democrat, lolling in his gilded chariot 
surrounded by lackeys in livery. 

Frequently those lackadaisical sentimentalists find 
their way into the columns of a magazine ; and occa- 
sionally a sedate quarterly allows them to glitter on 
its pages. The editor smiled as he read the manu- 



382 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



script, and fearful, perhaps of offending the conceited 
writer and his friends, or desirous, it may be, to test 
the gullibility of his readers, and to see how many 
would prefer high-sounding epithets to common sense 
in plain language, he handed it to the printer without 
alteration or erasure. His conscience has troubled 
him since ; especially when he heard that article de- 
clared to be very fine. Happy will it be for the 
cause of literature when the tribe editorial exercise 
with rigid impartiality their conservative veto power. 
They are the guardians of the language ; to their 
pages the young have a right to look for models of 
style ; and when it is considered with what ease 
grandiloquence and bombast are imitated and exceed- 
ed, no other motive need be urged to enforce upon 
them the necessity of keeping the 'literary fountains 
pure, if they cannot always make them sparkle. 

Those who have been in the habit of attending the 
popular courses of lectures delivered in our large 
cities during the winter months, need not be told that 
many of them are the veriest common-place, dressed 
up in gaudy colors ; things " full of sound and fury, 
signifying nothing." True, there are some honorable 
exceptions — perhaps two or three in the course of a 
season — but the general impression made upon your 
mind as the lecturer proceeds, is, that he, at any rate, 
does not deem it 

" Praise enough 
To fill the ambition of a common man 
That Chatham's language is his mother tongue." 

But he is not a common man, although his thoughts 
are very common, and Chatham's language would 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



383 



render them intolerable. Of necessity, therefore, he 
seeks some other dress in which to clothe them ; and 
thus he is enabled to palm them off as something 
very fine, just as by means of high-heeled boots, and 
a laced coat, and a long feather, a fellow with a little 
soul and a weak body may pass muster as a bold 
grenadier. Take one of these lectures, for sometimes 
the author is vain enough to print, and translate it 
into plain English. It seemed very splendid in the 
delivery. Tour attention was entirely taken up by 
the speaker's sonorous periods, his strangely-com- 
pounded epithets and his mysteriously-inverted sen- 
tences. But how does it look now that with great 
effort you have " done it into English ? " You toss 
it aside with a pish, exclaiming, " Weary, stale, flat, 
and unprofitable." Let us not be understood as call- 
ing in question the general utility of these public 
lectures. If they have done nothing else, they have 
thinned the attendance upon more questionable places 
of amusement ; and they bid fair to post on the doors 
of every theatre the ominous words— To let. The 
morals of a community are certainly of more import- 
ance than their language ; but it does not follow that 
what is confessedly of less, is, therefore, of no im- 
portance. 

This passion for high-sounding epithets pervades 
every class of the community ; and, if not checked, 
will, in the course of another generation, so emascu- 
late our mother tongue as to divest it of all its ener- 
gy. To begin at the beginning in citing a few speci- 
mens ; has not the reader noticed that now there are 
very few schools I They were common in our youth- 



384 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ful days, but of late, they have been almost entirely 
superseded by Academies, Seminaries, Institutes, and 
Lyceums. Pretty words those. Are boys and girls 
taught therein by more competent teachers than they 
were in the olden times ? Boys and. girls ! Pardon 
us : we should have said — Young gentlemen and 
ladies. And as for teachers, you may find them in 
Sunday-school; but, as you value your gentility, 
apply not that vulgar epithet to — Preceptors, Pro- 
fessors, Principals, or Academicians. You will have 
observed, too, that those who rejoice in the euphony 
of these self-applied titles condescend to nothing 
lower, in their prospectus, than to give instruction in 
orthography with strict attention to orthoepy / mean- 
ing thereby that they teach children to spell, and 
attend to their pronunciation. Is the art of writing 
taught now-a-days ? Certainly, but that also has been 
dignified with a Greek title. In an " institute " or a 
" lyceum " you may look in vain for those old-fash- 
ioned articles with an intelligible inscription, such as 
John Smithes Copy-hook ; but you will find — " Speci- 
mens of Oaligraphy, by Master Horatio Augustus 
Noodle." What is Belles-lettres ? It is pure French, 
and can never be anything else. It has no precise 
meaning in its own country, and therefore it is not 
to be wondered at that there should be a diversity of 
opinion as to what particular branches the barbarism 
should include ; and yet a seminary that did not 
place belles-lettres in its course of instruction, might 
justly be considered as behind the age. The com- 
mon old-fashioned amusements necessary for exer- 
cise, such as jumping the rope or playing ball, are 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



385 



called, in the dialect of very fashionable instructors, 
Calisthenics. 

Even the pulpit is not free from this affectation of 
refinement in language. Once it was usual to pray / 
now, addresses are made to the throne of grace. The 
expressive little verb, to preach, has given place to 
the phrase — deliver a discourse, which may mean 
anything — a sermon, a eujogy on music, or a lecture 
on politics. To kneel is very intelligible, but — to 
assume a devotional posture, as we have been invited 
to do on more than one occasion, is not quite so clear, 
although, possibly, in the opinion of some, more ele- 
gant. Preachers are — clergymen ; their hearers — an 
audience ; and their meeting-house — a sanctuary. 
Many and various are the titles by which the Su- 
preme Being has been pleased to reveal himself in 
the Bible ; but you will search in vain there for that 
most common appellation of the present day — the 
Deity. The word has been borrowed from the classic 
pages of heathen Greece and Borne, and is probably 
considered satisfactory evidence that those who use it 
in the pulpit are educated men. There is not in any 
language a more expressive term than the pure old 
Saxon word death. Why should it be displaced by 
that long and awkward collocation of syllables dis- 
solution ? But enough. The reader's memory will 
readily furnish him with a number of similar new- 
coined expressions that are rapidly gaining currency. 
Nor need we dwell at any length in illustration of 
the fact that this euphonistic mania is pervading all 
classes of the community. Thus shops and stores 
are converted into "bazaars" and " emporiums," 
25 



386 



KEVIEWS A3STD ESSAYS. 



Houses, once so common, are now known as tene- 
ments, mansions, and residences. InJc, in the lan- 
guage of the most vulgar stationer, is — writing-fluid. 
Eating-houses are, by those who prefer the language 
of ancient Rome — refectories; by those who affect 
the modern French — restaurants ; and horse-markets 
are rendered respectable by dubbing them — hip- 
ponas. 

It is evident, and therefore no argument is needed 
to establish the position, that the press, aided by the 
pulpit and the lecture-room, is mainly responsible for 
the introduction and consequent currency of these 
and similar refinements. We are not certain that it 
is possible now to effect a reform. Revolutions, it is 
said, never go backward ; and the prospect at present 
is, that the language of our fathers will become obso- 
lete, and, instead of its nervous majesty, we shall 
bequeath to posterity a dialect of sublimated sweet 
sounds, very pretty but very tame. Do we object, 
then, to the use of beautiful language ? Are we to 
be confined to words of Saxon origin? Must we 
abandon our derivatives from the Greek and Latin ? 
These questions- we answer, of course, without hesi- 
tation, in the negative. But what is beautiful lan- 
guage ? What makes one word more beautiful than 
another ? In answer to the former of these questions, 
we say that the beauty of any literary composition 
depends upon the thoughts conveyed, and not upon 
the words in which they are expressed. Tame lan- 
guage may injure great sentiments, but all the high- 
sounding epithets in the dictionary will not make 
tame thoughts great. The second element of beauty 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



387 



is perspicuity. If the thoughts are beautiful, and 
the language used to convey them is such as the 
reader cannot help understanding, then that also is 
beautiful, whether it be the plain every-day phrases 
of common people, or a dialect borrowed from the 
classic pages of antiquity. Glass will obstruct the 
vision quite as much when beautifully painted as 
when discolored with dirt ; and a style studded with 
far-fetched epithets and high-sounding phrases may 
be as dark as one abounding in colloquial vulgarisms. 

Again, that word, no matter of what syllables it is 
composed, or whence it is derived, which most exactly 
expresses the idea of the writer, is always the most 
beautiful. Our language is peculiarly rich in what 
are called synonyms. These are words which differ 
by slight shades of meaning, and which serve, conse- 
quently, to express with precision minute varieties of 
thought. For instance, the words happiness, felicity, 
bliss, convey in general the same idea, and might be 
used indiscriminately by a poet, according as his 
verse required one, three, or four syllables. Neither 
of them is in itself handsomer than the other, but 
there are sentences in which any correct ear would 
detect £n impropriety in the use of one instead of the 
other. Amenity, suavity, sweetness, are equally 
good words, and equally expressive and necessary ; 
but who would talk of the suavity of sugar, or the 
sweetness of a prospect, or the amenities of a man's 
temper % Take again the following adjectives — inju- 
rious, mischievous, harmful, hurtful, deleterious, de- 
structive, pernicious, baneful, ruinous, noxious, venom- 
ous, poisonous ; while there are things to which, with 



388 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



propriety, each of these expletives might be applied, 
it is evident that no two convey precisely the same 
idea, and there may be occasions when each in its 
turn would be most appropriate and therefore most 
beautiful. Is not tear a beautiful word ? " I could 
think of that word," says Robert Hall, " until I 
wept and how expressive, and therefore beautiful, 
is that word — weep ! What a strange fancy, what an 
absurd idea of the beautiful had that modern writer 
who tells us of a lovely woman, that he " found her 
in a state of lachrymation ! " instead of saying in 
plain language, that would have appealed at once to 
every heart — I found her weeping ; or, I found her 
in tears. " It is a bad sign, my hearers," said a min- 
ister who affected elegance of diction, " it is a bad 
sign when you feel somnolent in the afternoon" He 
thought it would be vulgar to tell them they ap- 
peared sleepy or drowsy, and will probably lecture 
his hearers, if some Mnd friend will give him the 
hint, on the " vitiosity of post-prandial somnolency." 
"Why not ? A celebrated English divine, Hall, bishop 
of Norwich, in a sermon preached at court, in the 
presence of royalty, selected as his theme the miracle 
at the pool of Bethesda. After an elaborate intro- 
duction, he invites his hearers to " consider, 

" I. The topography, 

" II. The aetiology, 

u III. The chronology of this miracle." 

There are, it is true, in all modern languages, and 
not more in our own than in others, a few words that, 
from their associations, have an air of rusticity or 
vulgarity. We plead not for them. They may safely 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS, 



389 



be abandoned, as we have enough to supply their 
places ; but we do insist that it is no mark of good 
breeding or good scholarship to forsake the plain, 
precise, and nervous expressions of our own mother 
tongue, for interlopers which have nothing more to 
recommend them than their novelty and their for- 
eign origin. It was in this way, by the affectation 
of Greek idioms and compounds, that the language 
of the ancient Romans became, after the Augustan 
age, so diluted and enervated as to lose nearly all the 
beauty and majesty that it once possessed. "While, 
on the contrary, the preservation of the Greek in its 
purity, for a length of time unequaled in the history 
of any other language, is to be attributed mainly to 
the contempt that people had for the use of any 
foreign terms. "Whencesoever they came, and by 
whomsoever used, the Greeks branded all these eupho- 
nistic improvements with the contemptuous epithet — 
barbarisms. 

In the English language there are also words, that, 
from the position of their syllables and their accent- 
uation, are harsh and not easily pronounced. They 
are, however, not more numerous than in other 
modern languages ; and are, in comparison with the 
whole, extremely few in number. It is very seldom 
that they are unavoidably used, and, when necessary, 
they give a pleasing variety to a style which would 
otherwise grow wearisome from its smoothness. 
The poets sometimes employ them with great skill 
when they would make the sound an echo to the 
sense, in the following verses from Dyer's Ruins of 
Rome : 



390 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



11 The pilgrim oft, 
At dead of night, 'mid his oraison, hears, 
Aghast, the voice of time, disparting towers, 
Tumbling all precipitate down-dash) d, 
Rattling around, hud thundering to the moon." 

And we assert, fearless of contradiction, that there 
is no language, ancient or modern, living or dead, 
that exceeds our own in its capability of giving utter- 
ance, in echoing language, to sentiments gentle and 
boisterous, tender and sublime. We may not afford 
space to verify our remark by numerous quotations, 
but simply refer the reader to the whole of that won- 
derfully-elaborate and inhnitably-harmonious elegy 
of Gray. Familiar though it be to every schoolboy, 
we fully subscribe to the sentiment " that imbued as 
it is with the calm, tearful melancholy of the time 
and place, it will fill up a soothing hour in millions 
of hearts which have not yet begun to beat." Allow 
us one short extract from Milton, and in fairness we 
must have one from Shakspeare. They shall both 
illustrate the point under consideration. The first is 
the language of the specter, death, at the gates of 
hell, addressed to the arch-fiend himself : 

"Back to thy punishment, 
False fugitive ! and to thy speed add wings, 
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 
Thy lingering ; or, with one stroke of this dart, 
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." 

" The hand of a master" (says a critic of our own 
day, himself a master) " is felt through every move- 
ment of this sentence, especially toward the close, 
where it seems to grapple with the throat of the 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



391 



reader ; the hard staccato stops, that well nigh take 
the breath in attempting to pronounce, ' or with one 
stroke of this dart,' are followed by an explosion of 
sound in the last line like a heavy discharge of artil- 
lery, in which, though a full syllable is interpolated 
even at the cesural pause, it is carried off almost 
without the reader perceiving the surplusage : 

'Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.' " 

But listen to the bard of Avon ; how, even with 
our " intractable English," he makes his readers see 
the lightning and hear the thunder. It is the lan- 
guage of the gentle Cordelia when her old gray-headed 
father is brought in from the pitiless tempest, to which 
he had been all night exposed by the cruelty of his 
other daughters : 

" Had you not been their father, these vjhite flakes. 
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face 
To be exposed against the warring winds ? 
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder ? 
In the most terrible and nimble stroke 
Of quick cross lightning f 11 

There is a degree of unfairness which even our 
most approved writers on rhetoric seem to manifest 
when comparing our own with ancient languages. 
They take a specimen for instance from some admired 
classic, Greek or Latin, and contrast it with the best 
English translation. Of course, the idiom being en- 
tirely different, the advantage is all on the side of the 
original, and then they rest satisfied that the fault is 
in our language ; they tell us it is tame, and inex- 
pressive in the comparison. Now it would be just as 



392 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



fair to take Milton's Paradise Lost, for instance, and 
because the versions that have been made into French, 
or Spanish, or Italian, do not equal the original, to 
argue, therefore^ the superiority of the English. Or 
select a passage from the greatest master of our glo- 
rious Anglo-Saxon; give it to a competent Latin 
scholar, and bid him turn it into the hexameters of 
ancient Eome, and by that test which would appear 
the more beautiful, the more concise, the more ex- 
pressive language ? Happily we have at least an 
answer to this question. Here is a passage from 
Shakspeare, among a thousand fully equal to it that 
might be selected, and with it we give, from the hand 
of a ripe "scholar, a poetical Latin version, which 
comes perhaps as near the spirit of the original as it 
is possible. But O how tame in the comparison ! 
And beautiful as is the Latin, no one after reading 
both but will be ready to exclaim, What a falling off 
is here ! The passage is taken from " Measure for 
Measure," and is the language of Claudio, a heathen, 
when informed by Isabella that she will not stain her 
honor to save his life. " A shamed life," says she, 
"is hateful :" he replies, 

" Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot, 
This sensible v:arm motion to become 
A kneaded cold ; and the delighted spirit 
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 
And blown with restless violence round about 
The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts 
_^ Imagine howling ! 'Tis too horrible ! 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



393 



The wearied and most loathed worldly life 
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

Here is the Latin, and it is beautiful : 

" Attamen ; heu ! quam triste mori ! nec quo sit eundum 

Scire prius — positum clausa putreseere in area ; 

Membrorum sisti motus, alacremque vigorem 

In luteam solvi molem — quam triste ! capacem 

Laetitiaeque jocique animam torrentibus uri 

Ignibus, aut montis claudi glacialis in alveo : 

Suspensumve dari ventis, noctesque diesque 

Hue illuc, invisa vi, turbantibus orb em ; 

Aut graviora pati, quam quos cruciatibus actos * 

Tartareas implere feris ululatibus umbras, 

Anxia mens hominum, mirum et miserabile ! finxit, 

Horrendum ! quodcumque mali ferat cegra senectus, 

Pauperiesve dolorve gravis, tractaeve catenas, 

Omnia quae possunt infestam reddere vitam, 

Esse voluptates laetae Elysiumque videntur, 

Spectanti mortem prope, venturamque timenti." 

But our mother tongue, we are told, is a hissing 
language ; and something more is meant by the charge 
than that we have frequent use for the letter s and 
the soft c. The intimation evidently is, that the 
English abounds in these sibilations to an extent un- 
equaled in other languages ; and grammarians, rheto- 
ricians, and writers on elocution gravely assert and 
mourn over it, without taking the trouble to ascertain 
its truth. "When a party of wise men were endeavor- 
ing to account philosophically for the strange fact, 
that a pail of water with a live fish in it weighs no 
more than the same pail of water without the fish, 
Dr. Franklin, who had not given his opinion, be- 
thought himself of a pair of scales, and on thus test- 



394 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ing the question under discussion, the fact was found 
to be false. Precisely so with the hissing of our ver- 
nacular. Get your scales and make the experiment. 
You need go no further than the above extract from 
Shakspeare and the accompanying Latin version ; or, 
you may select at random a passage from any foreign 
author, and compare it with a good English transla- 
tion. Take, if you please, the Lord's Prayer ; count 
the hissing sounds in the Greek, in the Latin, and in 
the English, and there, as well as in nine instances 
out of ten, from whatever source you may choose 
them, the fact, as in the case of the fish, will be 
found — false. We know not that we are entitled to 
much credit for this discovery; at any rate, we do 
not claim much, it is so easy a thing to count ; but 
it is strange that philosophers should lament over and 
attempt to palliate facts that exist in the imagination 
only. 

We are not claiming perfection for our language. 
It is doubtless susceptible of improvement, and it is 
constantly receiving additions that are of real value. 
He who introduces a new word that is expressive and 
necessary, is a public benefactor. In this respect, 
not less than in others, necessity is the mother of in- 
vention ; and there is — to quote the language of an 
amusing writer of the present day — " there is no 
government mint of words, and it is no statutable 
offense to invent a felicitous or daring expression 
unauthorized by Mr. Todd ! When a man of genius, 
in the heat of his pursuits or his feelings, has thrown 
out a peculiar word, it probably conveyed more pre- 
cision or energy than any other established word ; 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 



395 



othenvise he is hut an ignorant pretender ! " Note 
the force of the adverb in that last sentence. It is 
not intended to imply, as the strict grammatical con- 
struction would seem to warrant, that one may be at 
the same time a man of genius and an ignorant pre- 
tender, but that this appellation belongs to him who 
invents, and endeavors to throw into circulation, words 
that are not more precise and energetic than those 
already established. 

May we not be permitted to suggest, with all mod- 
esty, to those who are dissatisfied with our vernacu- 
lar, that by possibility the fault may be in themselves 
rather than in the language % Is it beyond a perad- 
venture, that on a very rigid investigation it might 
not be discovered that the reason why they cannot 
find suitable words in which to express great thoughts 
is because the thoughts themselves are not great ? 
As the reader will fferceive, we venture to propose 
these inquiries with great deference; and he will 
pardon us, perhaps, when he reflects upon the fact, 
that it was our own English that sustained him who 
soared 

"Above all Greek, above all Roman fame," 
ascending, in his own language, 

" The highest heaven of invention:" 

and that this same " well of English undefiled" did 
not fail the dramatist when 

" Each scene of many-color'd life he drew, 
Exhausted worlds — and then imagined new." 

We will not vouch for the truth of the following 
anecdote, nor attempt to show its pertinency, but 



396 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



leave it with the reader to make the application. 
An ambitious musician, who attributed the loud dis- 
approbation of his hearers to a defect in the instrument 
on which he was playing, was told by Handel, jealous 
of the honor of the organ on which he himself per- 
formed, " The fault is not there, my friend ; the fact 
is, you have no music in yov/r soul ! " 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



397 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS.* 



Many thanks to thee, friend Howitt, for these 
pleasant volumes. They are neither biographical 
nor critical, but occupy just that ground which no 
one is better qualified to cultivate than thyself. And 
there are more to come. The dramatists, with the 
exception of the greatest of them all, are passed by, 
with some dear masters of the lyre, of whose homes 
and haunts we have almost the promise in thy brief 
advertisement. Disappoint us not in this matter; 
and though it may cost thee thousands of miles of 
travel, as did the volumes before us, yet is there 
abundant treasure in the poetic commonwealth of 
England ; and no other living man may follow in the 
vein thou hast opened ; or, if he follow, may find 
those gems and precious things, and give them to us 
in the freshness of thine own simplicity and single- 
ness of purpose. Tell us about the smooth Waller ; 
and about Young, merry and jovial in his life, but 
sad and somber in his poetry. Make us better ac- 
quainted with Akenside and Beattie, and the gentle 
Allan Kamsay. We would know something more, 
too, than the mere biographer or the professional 

* Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets. By Will- 
iam Howitt. 2 vols. New York : Harper k Brothers. 1847. 



398 



EEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



critics tell ns of our dear friends — friends they are, 
though we never saw them — Milman, whose heroics 
Byron slandered ; kind Miss Mitford and stately Mrs. 
Norton; Browning, a true poet, less admired than 
she to whom he gave his name, when he blotted from 
fame's fair temple " Elizabeth Barrett :" tell us of 
them both, now that they two are one ; and leave 
room in thy volumes for all that thou mayest glean of 
him, the recently departed, who caused the tear and 
smile so pleasingly to blend, and whose name will 
live while oppression riots on half-paid toil, or man 
wears linen. But let us turn from what we wish to 
what we have ; and with a well-earned compliment 
to the publishers, who have given us these volumes in 
a style most befitting, in the perfection of typography, 
and with striking embellishments, sit we down to- 
gether, gentle reader, to the feast before us. 

As was most proper, the genial Chaucer heads the 
list ; albeit the lapse of five centuries renders it ex- 
tremely difficult to track his haunts, more especially 
as former biographers seem to have confirmed Tyr- 
whitt's assertion, that just nothing of him is really 
known. That he was born in London he tells us 
himself; but whether he was educated at Oxford or 
at Cambridge is uncertain. The probability seems 
to be that he studied at both universities. He be- 
came in early life a courtier, and, according to 
Bymer, received many solid tokens of royal regard. 
In the thirty-ninth year of his age the king granted 
him an annuity of twenty marks. Seven years after 
he was made controller of the custom of wools, etc., 
in the port of London, and had a grant for life of a 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



399 



pitcher of wine daily. On the accession of the second 
Richard he had another annuity of twenty marks, 
and from that sovereign, as well as from Henry IV., 
he received many tokens of special favor. He was, 
successively, envoy to Genoa and embassador to 
France, where, according to Froissart, he conducted 
a treaty of marriage between the young prince of 
Wales and the French king's daughter. 

But the life of the " father of our truly English 
poetry," as he is justly styled, was not all sunshine. 
Owing to his connection with the Lollards, and for 
other reasons not so well known, he incurred the 
king's displeasure, was obliged to surrender his annui- 
ties, and to flee from his native land. On his return 
he was imprisoned in the Tower, where he was 
treated with great rigor ; and on his liberation, which 
was effected not without dishonor to himself, he wrote 
his " Testament of Love," in which he complains 
" of being berafte out of dignitie of office, in which 
he made a gatheringe of worldly godes." His great 
work, the Canterbury Tales, was written when he 
had reached his sixtieth year; remained in manu- 
script more than half a century after his death, which 
occurred in the year 1400 ; and was first issued from 
the press of the celebrated Caxton. 

* * * 

But who reads Chaucer nowadays ? Few, indeed, 
very few. The attempt is too much like working 
one's passage ; and readers dislike toil, and prefer the 
ease of the railroad, and, if it might be, the speed of 
the electric telegraph. With the multitude the en- 
joyment and the pleasure are found not by the way, 



400 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



but at the journey's end ; not among the jewels of 
the author, but at the finis of the printer. It is some 
sort of satisfaction to know that the loss is their own ; 
and gratifying to read here the joyous outburst of one 
who has studied his antique language and uncouth 
spelling, and found therein an ample recompense. 

" There is an elastic geniality in his spirit, a buoy- 
ant music in his numbers, a soul of enjoyment in his 
whole nature, that mark him at once as a man of a 
thousand ; and we feel in the charm that bears us 
along a strength that will outlast a thousand years. 
It is like that of the stream that runs, of the wind 
that blows, of the sun that comes up, ruddy as with 
youth, from the bright east on an early summer's 
morning. It is the strength of nature living in its 
own joyful life, and mingling with the life of all 
around in gladdening companionship. For a hundred 
beautiful pictures of genuine English existence and 
English character ; for a world of persons and things 
that have snatched us from the present to their so- 
ciety ; for a host of wise and experience-fraught max- 
ims ; for many a tear shed and emotion revived ; for 
many a happy hour and bright remembrance, we 
thank thee, Dan Chaucer, and just thanks shalt thou 
receive a thousand years hence." 

A greater in the world's esteem, though scarce an 
equal, follows : Edmund Spenser, born also in Lon- 
don, and, like his predecessor, for many years a cour- 
tier and a dependent on the great. He took his 
master's degree at Cambridge in 1576 ; thence re- 
moving to the north, he wrote his Shepherd' 1 s Calen- 
dar^ which he dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, by 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



401 



whom, and the great earl of Leicester, tie was intro- 
duced to the queen of England. Elizabeth received 
him graciously ; and it is said, though from her 
known parsimony the fact is questionable, she made 
him a gratuity of a very large sum in those days — 
one hundred pounds. In 1579 he was employed on 
a mission to France, and in the next year was made 
private secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. 
His life, however, was far from happy, and he found, 
to his sorrow, that to have friends at court implies 
having enemies also. It was enough for the prosaic 
Burleigh that Spenser was a " rhymer," as he called 
him, and a protege of his rivals, Leicester and Sid- 
ney. "All this," said the sturdy treasurer, when he 
received the queen's command to pay the poet a hund- 
dred pounds, " all this for a song ! " 

A part of the forfeited estate of the traitor Des- 
mond, containing some three thousand acres of land, 
in the county of Cork, was granted him through the 
influence and interest of his friends. Here, in 1590, 
he wrote the first parts of his masterpiece, " The 
Faerie Queene." Six years after he published the 
remaining cantos. At Kilcolman — so was his estate 
called — he passed several of his happiest years. In 
the society of an affectionate wife, whom he celebrates 
in immortal verse, with his children growing up about 
him, and in the midst of scenery the most magnifi- 
cent, he poured forth streams of melody, cheering 
and perennial. But all this happiness, and the labors 
and the life of the poet, came to a speedy and a 
mournful termination. In the memorable rebellion 

of Tyrone, an infuriated mob, with savage yells, 

26 



402 



REVIEWS AST) ESSAYS. 



burst open his dwelling at midnight, set it on fire, 
destroyed his property, his books, and several unpub- 
lished poems ; and, keenest pang of all, his youngest 
child, in his cradle, perished in the flames. Distracted, 
he fled to London. In poverty, heart-broken, he died 
there in 1598. His friend, the earl of Essex, was at 
the expense of his funeral, " which was attended," 
says Camden, " by poets, and mournful elegies and 
poems, with the pens that wrote them, thrown into 
his tomb." 

In no mood for penning a panegyric, or for the 
needless task of dwelling upon the beauties of his 
verse, let us simply say that, as a poet, he accom- 
plished his great mission : "to breathe lofty and un- 
selfish thoughts into the souls of men ; to make truth, 
purity, and high principle the objects of desire." 

Of Shakspeare, the great and peerless, whose 
statue " in the Valhalla of British poetry must be 
first admitted and placed in the center, before grada- 
tions and classifications are thought of," our author 
has gleaned but little that is new. His homes and 
haunts in London have disappeared before the march 
of improvement. The theaters, at the doors of which 
on his first appearance in London he held horses, and 
where afterward he enacted his own inimitable char- 
acters ; the house at Banksicle where he resided when 
in London ; Paris Garden, where the queen, her 
nobles, and ladies, were wont to amuse themselves at 
bear-baits, while Willy looked on and studied human 
nature ; the Mermaid Tavern in Cheapside, where, 
on club nights, he met the choice spirits of the age, 
are gone, all gone ! " If the fame of men depended 



HOWITT'S BEITISH POETS. 



403 



on bricks and mortar, what reputations would have 
been extinguished within the last two centuries in 
London ! " Not, so, however, with the quiet village 
of Stratford-upon-Avon. The house in which the 
poet was born is still standing ; and " there stands 
the house in which he wooed his Ann Hathaway, and 
the old garden in which he walked with her. There, 
only a few miles distant, is the stately hall of Charle- 
cote, whither the youthful poacher of Parnassus was 
carried before the unlucky knight. There stands his 
tomb, to which the great, and the wise, and the gifted 
from all regions of the world have made pilgrimage, 
followed by millions who would be thought so, the 
frivolous and the empty ; but all paying homage, by 
the force of reason, or the force of fashion, vanity, 
and imitation, to the universal interpreter of human- 
ity. It is well that the slow change of a country 
town has permitted the spirit of veneration to alight 
there, and cast its protecting wings over the earthly 
traces of that existence which diffused itself as a 
second life through all the realms of intellect. There 
is nothing missing of Shakspeare's there but the 
house which he built and the mulberry-tree which he 
planted. The tree was hewn down ; the house was 
pulled down and dispersed piecemeal by the infamous 
parson Gastrell, who thus ' damned himself to eternal 
fame ' more thoroughly than the fool who fired the 
temple of Diana." 

In his habits Shakspeare was abstemious and moral. 
A lover of home, and devotedly attached to his do- 
mestic hearth, he annually retired from the dissipated 
company of the witty and the gay, to spend all the 



404 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



time in his power in the peaceful place of his birth 
and the purity of his wedded home. Of his prudence 
and economical habits no better evidence is needed 
than that he who came to London in his twenty-third 
year, poor, friendless, and glad to seize upon any 
employment that might give him honest bread, had 
laid by, before forty, a fortune calculated to be equal 
to a thousand pounds a year at the present day. . . . 
When a man has nothing to say, it is always best to 
say nothing ; and certainly no honor is done by de- 
voting pages of commonplace thought to him of whom 
John Milton gloriously asks : 

" What needs my Shakspeare for his honored bones, 

The labor of an age in piled stones ? 

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid 

Under a starry-pointing pyramid ? 

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame ! 

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name'? 

Thou, in our wonder and astonishment. 

Hast built thyself a long-lived monument." 

In a kind of parenthesis between the writer of 
these lines and him of whom they were written — a 
miserable mud cottage between two gorgeous pal- 
aces — we have Abraham Cowley. It would puzzle 
thee, Howitt, to give what to thyself shall seem a 
good reason for placing him among the " most emi- 
nent British poets." True, he had his admirers in 
his lifetime, and at his death was buried in Westmin- 
ster Abbey. His body lies in close proximity to those 
of Chaucer and Spenser, but by thine own confession 
he was a mere constructor of toys and gewgaws ; a 
dealer in artifices, conceits, and fustian. As says the 
old gastronome : 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



405 



" Unless some sweetness in the bottom lie, 
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie ? " 

And Cowley is nothing but crinkling : a mere dealer 
in " fricasseed snow." 

The house in which, in 1608, the great Milton 
first saw the light was destroyed by the memorable 
fire ; else had it been, to this day, a shrine for as 
many pilgrimages as the bard of Avon's modest 
dwelling. His father was in easy circumstances, and 
early discovered the budding genius of his son, whose 
delight in books was so intense, even from infancy, 
that he seldom left them till after midnight. Over 
the pages of Spenser, whom he calls his master, the 
youthful Milton was wont to bend with intense en- 
thusiasm ; and encouraged and urged on by parental 
smiles in his boyhood, he drank deeply at the Pierian 
spring. Our author laments, as others have done 
before him, and as we do, though lamentation is use- 
less, that more restraint was not placed on the studies 
of the lad. Perchance if it had been so he had not 
lost his sight ; and then, again, perchance the Para- 
dise Lost had not been written, and to this day there 
had been no real epic in the English language. At 
Christ's College, Cambridge, which he entered in his 
seventeenth year, he wrote, as is well known, elegies 
in Latin verse, unsurpassed, if equaled, by any that 
have been produced since the Augustan age. On 
leaving his alma mater, where, the cynical Johnson 
tells us, though he says he is ashamed to tell it, " he 
received the indignity of corporal correction," mean- 
ing that his tutor whipped him, he went to reside at 
Horton, in the county of Buckingham. Here, besides 



406 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



thoroughly reading the Greek and Latin authors, he 
made himself so well acquainted with the Italian as 
to be enabled to speak and write the language with 
such fluency as to astonish the most learned natives. 
On his tour through that country he was honorably 
received by the most distinguished men of the age, 
spent some of his happiest hours, and made prepara- 
tions for his great poem, the scheme of which he had 
already conceived. Hearing, however, of the national 
troubles in his own land, " instead of proceeding for- 
ward,- ' we quote the eloquent Warton, " to feast his 
fancy with the contemplation of scenes familiar to 
Theocritus and Homer, the fires of Etna and the 
porticoes of Pericles, he abruptly changed his course, 
and hastily returned home to plead the cause of ideal 
liberty. He came back, and engaged in the humble 
but honorable task of teaching school ; and here, 
says our author, 

" We encounter one of the most disgraceful pieces 
of chuckling over his lowly fate to be found in that 
most disgraceful life of our great poet and patriot, 
by Dr. Johnson. On Milton's head Johnson poured 
all the volume of his collected bile. Take this one 
passage as a specimen of the whole : • Let not our 
veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some 
degree of merriment on great promises and small 
performances ; on the man who hastens home because 
his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and 
when he reaches the scene of action, vapors away his 
patriotism in a private boarding-school.' The pas- 
sage is as false as it is malicious. Milton did not 
promise to come home and put himself at the head of 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



407 



armies or senates. He knew where his strength lay, 
and he came to use it, and did use it most effectually. 
He did not say, 6 1 will be another Cromwell,' but he 
became the Cromwell of the pen. He did not make 
great promises and show small performances ; he did 
not vapor away his patriotism in a private boarding- 
school. He took to a school, because he must live ; 
but he soon showed that every moment not required 
for teaching his private pupils was ardently and un- 
ceasingly devoted to teaching the nation and the 
world. His pen was worth a thousand swords ; his 
thoughts flew about and slew faster than bullets or 
cannon-balls. Shame to the old bigoted lexicogra- 
pher ! must every true son of his country and lover 
of truth exclaim when he reads what Milton wrote 
and what he did. To say nothing of his Tractate of 
Education and other works ; to say nothing of his 
Paradise Lost, and all his other noble poems, aH 
breathing the most lofty and godlike sentiments — 
those sentiments which create souls of fire, of strength, 
and truth in every age as it arises — what are his 
Areopagiticaf his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates? 
his Eiconoclastes f his Defensio Populi ? his Defensio 
Secunda? his Treatise on the Means of Removing 
Hirelings out of the Church ? his Civil Power in 
Ecclesiastical Cases ? Are these nothing ? If ever 
there was a magnificent monument of human genius, 
of intellectual power, and glorious patriotism built 
up by one man, it exists in these immortal works. 
Vapored away his patriotism in a private boarding- 
school ! . . . The poor schoolmaster, who on the 
plains of Italy heard the cry of his country for help. 



408 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



flew to her rescue as confidently as if he had been a 
prince with fleets and armies at his command. In a 
poor hired dwelling he prepared his missiles and war- 
like machines. Men like Johnson, in the bigotry of 
despotism, might despise him and them, for they 
were but a few quires of paper and a gray goose 
quill ; but he soon shot that quill higher against the 
towers of royalty, deeper into the ranks of the op- 
pressors, than ever the bullets of Cromwell and Fairfax 
could pierce. His papers flew abroad and unfurled 
the banners of liberty before which kings trembled 
and the stoutest myrmidons dropped their arms. 
His Tenure of Kings and Magistrates vindicated, in 
unanswerable eloquence, the right of nations to call 
their monarchs to account for their offenses against 
the laws. His Defense of the People from the ac- 
cursed charges of the hireling Salmasius flew through 
Europe, and struck kings and servile senates dumb. 
By the side of Cromwell the visage of the blind old 
man was seen with awe and wonder ; the learned and 
the wise, from distant realms, came to gaze upon the 
unequaled twain ; and when the inspired secretary 
exclaimed, 

1 Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,' 

the guilty persecutors shrunk aghast, for they knew 
where the voice of Milton could reach, the arm of 
Cromwell could reach too. Who shall say how much 
of the renown of England at that day sprung from 
the pen and soul of John Milton ! how much he 
inspired of that which Cromwell did ! and how much 
of the grand march of political and social renovation 



Howrrrs beitish poets. 



409 



which is now going on throughout the world, origin- 
ated in the vaporings of the poor schoolmaster ! Be- 
fore his fame how pales that of him who has dared 
thus to revile him ! What are all the works of John- 
son — and we are inclined to give them their fullest 
due — when compared with those of Milton and their 
consequences ? Before him 

' Whose soul was like a star, and dwelt apart,' 

it became the man who so worthily chastised the 
meanness of a Chesterfield, to have bowed with hu- 
mility and reverential love." 

This is not more spirited than well deserved. 
With as great severity might be handled Johnson's 
frigid criticisms on the poetry of the blind bard, but 
it is needless. The world differs from the critic 
when he says of " Lycidas," that the diction is harsh 
and the numbers unpleasing ; when he says of " Co- 
mus," that almost all the speeches are too long ; and 
of his sonnets, that " of the best it can only be said 
that they are not bad." It savors, indeed, strongly 
of the ridiculous, that the author of " Irene " should 
venture to criticise and censure the style, the measure, 
or the melody of verse that will be embalmed in 
thousands of hearts when the fact that he himself 
attempted poetry is forgotten. For several interest- 
ing incidents in the domestic life of Milton we must 
refer to the volumes before us. He died in November, 
1674, and was buried in the church of St. Giles ; and 
it seems probable, from the statements of our author, 
though for the credit of humanity we could wish 
that the fact might be disproved, that his coffin has 



410 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



been disinterred and opened, and his bones carried 
off by sacrilegious relic-liunters. But the spirit 
lives ; and though in his lifetime, and afterward, his 
name was loaded with obloquy and reproach, a halo 
of increasing glory now surrounds it, and it cannot 
die. As a British poet, by those who do not place 
him first, he is esteemed second only to Shakspeare ; 
and as a man, a more ardent and sincere lover of 
liberty and virtue, a more zealous and indefatigable 
champion of the right, one who brought to his great 
task more learning or a greater genius, has never 
been permitted to bless our world. He was, indeed, 
" the noblest model of a devoted patriot and true En- 
glishman ; an.d the study of his works is the most 
certain means of perpetuating to his country spirits 
worthy of her greatness." 

Of Butler, the witty author of Hudibras, little is 
known, save that during life he struggled with ad- 
verse fortune, and after his death was honored with a 
monument in Westminster Abbey. His name, John- 
son says, andHowitt agrees with him, can only perish 
with the English language. If we mistake not, his 
poem is little read at the present day ; and, if doomed 
never to be forgotten, he is, what amounts nearly to 
the same thing, very much neglected. 

In succession, our author gives us Dryden and 
Addison, alike in that both married ladies who, prid- 
ing themselves on their birth, rendered the houses of 
the poets unhappy ; and unlike in the fact, that while 
the latter was fortunate in the acquisition of this 
world's goods, and honored with high office, the 
former, through life, grappled with poverty, and was 



HOWITT'S LETTISH POETS, 



411 



substantially neglected by those who fawned upon 
him and fed him with cheap flattery. Dry den had 
also to contend with the malignity of envious rivals ; 
and what was perhaps the bitterest ingredient in his 
cup, the laureateship, which he held for a season, was 
taken from him, and, with its emoluments, bestowed 
on his unworthy rival, Shadwell. For no better rea- 
son than the hope of mending his fortune, he abjured 
Puritanism and embraced Popery ; but in this he was 
also disappointed, and was even less successful as a 
Papist than as a Protestant. " Poor Dryden ! with a 
cross wife, and the barren blaze of aristocracy around 
him, the poorest coal-heaver need not have envied 
him." His rank as a poet is well ascertained, and 
his fame will live when his faults and misfortunes are 
forgotten. Expressive is the inscription on his monu- 
ment in Westminster Abbey ; it is one word — Dry- 
den. Not near his equal as a poet, though popular 
in his day, and praised by all parties as the author of 
'Cato, Addison's is a life upon which it is far more 
agreeable to dwell. It was he who first sounded 
forth the glory of Milton, who turned the attention 
of England back to her earlier poets, and who did 
more than all others to make periodical literature 
valuable. As a prose writer, he to this day continues 
to deserve Johnson's eulogium : " Whoever wishes 
to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, 
and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days 
and nights to the volumes of Addison." Somewhat 
dissipated in his earlier life, he has left, in his "De- 
fense of the Christian Religion" ample evidence 
that he had theoretically studied the great truths of 



412 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



divine revelation, the power of which upon his own 
heart he practically exemplified in his last moments, 
when, aware that the lamp was flickering in the 
socket, he called for the licentious Lord Warwick, 
and with great tenderness, desiring him to listen to 
his last admonitions, said : " I have sent for yon that 
you may see how a Christian can die." 

Better known, perhaps, than any of his cotempo- 
raries or predecessors, and, except Shakspeare, more 
frequently quoted, it needs not that we dwell at any 
length on that greatest master of English verse — 
Alexander Pope. Born in London, inheriting a 
feeble constitution and a deformed body, he lisped in 
numbers from his childhood. All the instruction 
that he received was finished when he reached his 
twelfth year, at which age he wrote his "Ode on 
Solitude." From that period he was his own teacher ; 
and delighting in books, he made himself master of 
Latin, Greek, and French, and was one of the very 
rare instances of a "genius at once precocious and 
enduring." In his twenty-third year he gave to the 
world his " Essay on Criticism," and soon after his 
" Rape of the Lock," which at once secured him fame 
and filled his purse. Four years after he issued the 
first volume of his Homer, which had been preceded 
by several of his smaller works, among which was 
that wonderful triumph over the harshness of our 
" crabbed English," the " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." 
He himself gives a humorous account of the celebrity 
he had already attained, when he says in a letter to 
Martha Blount, describing his journey to the cele- 
brated university : " About a mile before I reached 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



413 



Oxford all the bells rang out in different notes, the 
clocks of every college answered one another, and 
sounded forth, some in deeper, some in softer tones, 
that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill pre- 
paration to the life I have since led among these old 
walls, memorable galleries, stone porticoes, students' 
walks, and solitary scenes. I wanted nothing but a 
black gown and a salary to be as mere a book-worm 
as any there. I conformed myself to college hours, 
was rolled up in books, lay in the most dusky parts 
of the university, and was as dead to the world as 
any hermit of the desert. If anything was alive or 
awake in me it was the little vanity, such as even 
those good men used to entertain when the monks of 
their own order extolled their piety and abstraction ; 
for I found myself received with a sort of respect 
which the idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to 
their own species ; who are as considerable here as 
the busy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your 
world. Indeed, I was treated in such a manner that 
I could not but sometimes ask myself what college I 
was founder of, or what library I had built. Me- 
thinks I do very ill to return to the world again — to 
leave the only place where I made a figure; and 
from seeing myself seated with dignity in the con- 
spicuous shelves of a library, put myself into the 
abject posture of lying at a lady's feet in St. James's 
Square." 

After many pleasant reminiscences of the poet's 
homes and haunts, which we may not even glance at, 
our author concludes with adverting to the disgrace- 
ful fact, that, as in the case of Milton, and even 



414 



REVIEWS AXD ESSAYS.. 



worse, his grave lias been rifled, and "the skull 
of Pope is now in the private collection of a phre- 
nologist." 

•Of Swift, two biographical sketches have been 
given to the world ; differing from each other in their 
estimate of his character, perhaps, as much as it was 
possible for two men to differ with the same facts be- 
fore them. Johnson paints him with a pencil dipped 
in gall, guided apparently by personal pique ; while 
Scott disguises the worst features of his character, 
and applies unsparingly the friendly varnish. Our 
author evidently aims to do him justice ; but, after 
all, is constrained to admit that in intense selfishness 
he was seldom equaled, in his treatment of the fair 
sex a fit subject for the indignant contempt of every 
honorable mind, and that many of his writings, 
" wonderful as is his talent, and admirable as is his 
wit, are dreadfully defiled by his coarseness and filth- 
iness of ideas." 

The transition from such a character to the pride 
of Scotia, Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, as he was 
called, is pleasant. While the world would have 
been none the worse had Swift never lived, and cer- 
tainly the better if his wit, with its indecent drapery, 
had been buried with him, of Thomson it may be 
truly said that he wrote 

"No line which, dying, he could wish to blot." 

An ardent lover of nature, many of his descrip- 
tions in " The Seasons," his most admired production, 
are admitted and felt to be wonderfully true ; and on 
every page is evidence that he was continually look- 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



415 



ing from nature up to nature's God. With a heart 
apparently swelling with gratitude to the Giver of 
all good, the poet instills into his reader the most en- 
nobling sentiments, and closes the poem with a mag- 
nificent burst of adoration which has no superior in 
the language, and is equaled only by the morning 
hymn put by Milton into the lips of our first parents. 
We have called " The Seasons " his most admired 
production. It is so ; but his " Castle of Indolence " 
is unquestionably a finer poem. The former abounds 
in harsh passages and strangely inverted sentences ; 
is unequal, and often prosaic. The latter is harmo- 
nious in diction, well sustained throughout, and 
everywhere pervaded by a tone of manly and invigo- 
rating thought. 

A peculiar trait in his character, which, from a 
perusal of his writings, none would have guessed, 
was indolence, a love of ease and self-indulgence. 
These were his " besetting sins." It is hard to believe 
of him who so gorgeously describes the ushering in 
of day, that he never saw the sun rise in his life ; 
yet is there no doubt of the fact, that to a friend, 
who, finding him in bed at noon, and asking why he 
did not rise earlier, he replied listlessly that "he had 
nae motive." 

To his self-indulgence, and the effeminacy and 
susceptibility consequent thereon, is attributed his 
premature death, by a cold caught on the Thames, in 
the forty-eighth year of his age. He was buried in 
the church at Eichmond, and on a brass tablet above 
his grave is an inscription closing with the well-known 
lines from his own " Winter :" 



416 



EE VIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



"Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme! 
teach me what is good ; teach me myself] 
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, 
From every low pursuit ! and feed my soul 
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure, 
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss." 

Passing Shenstoke, whose poems no one pretends 
to praise and few to read, and even whose taste of 
landscape gardening our author questions, we come 
to that most wonderful instance of precocious genius, 
Chatteeton. His history is more like romance than 
reality, and the truth in his case is indeed stranger 
than fiction. Fatherless, and his widowed mother 
pinched with poverty, he had, necessarily, few advant- 
ages of early education. Until six and a half years 
of age he gave no evidence of intellect, and his poor 
mother began to think him an absolute fool. Sud- 
denly and unexpectedly the hidden spark of genius 
burst forth ; and, says Cumberland, as quoted by our 
author : 

" He grew thoughtful and reserved. He was silent 
and gloomy for long intervals together, speaking to 
no one, and appearing angry when noticed or dis- 
turbed. He would break out into sudden fits of 
weeping, for which no reason could be assigned; 
would shut himself in some chamber, and suffer no 
one to approach him, nor allow himself to be enticed 
from his seclusion. Often he would go to the length 
of absenting himself from home altogether, for the 
space, sometimes, of many hours ; and his sister re- 
membered him being most severely chastised for a 
long absence, at which, however, he did not shed one 
tear, but merely said, 6 It is hard, indeed, to be 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



417 



whipped for reading.' His money, all that he could 
procure, went to get the perusal of books ; and on 
Sundays, and holidays and half holidays, he was 
either wandering solitarily in the fields, sitting beside 
the tomb of Canynge in the church, or was shut up 
in a little room at his mother's, attending to no meal- 
times, and only issuing out, when he did appear, be- 
grimed with ocher, charcoal, and black lead. From 
twelve to seven each Saturday he was always at 
home ; returning a few minutes after the clock had 
struck, to get to his little room and to shut himself 
up. In this room he always had by him a great 
piece of ocher in a brown pan ; pounce-bag full of 
charcoal dust, which he had from a neighbor ; also a 
bottle of black lead powder, which they once took to 
clean the stove with, and made him very angry. 
Every holiday, almost, he passed at home ; and 
often, having been denied the key when he wanted 
it, because they thought he hurt his health and made 
himself dirty, he would come to Mrs. Edkins and 
kiss her cheek, and coax her to get it for him, using 
the most persuasive expressions to effect his end ; so 
that this eagerness of his to be in this room so much 
alone, the apparatus, the parchments, both plain as 
well as written on, and the begrimed figure he always 
presented when he came down at tea-time, his face 
exhibiting many stains of black and yellow, all these 
circumstances began to alarm them." 

Yery far were they from conjecturing the real 
nature of the lad's employment. Plentifully supplied 
with parchment, which he found in the old church of 
St. Mary Redcliffe, with his ocher, and charcoal, and 

27 



418 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



was imitating antique manuscripts, and clothing in 
the drapery of bygone years his own strange fancies. 
He produced, to the utter astonishment of all who 
saw them, pedigrees of different individuals, with 
coats of arms, elaborately painted ; histories of old 
bridges and churches ; castles and palaces in strange 
styles of architecture, beautifully drawn and elabo- 
rately described. He was looked upon as a lucky 
boy by those who gazed upon the treasures dragged 
by him, as they thought, from the clutches of dim 
antiquity. The dark ages seemed to grow bright, as 
one trophy after another of his imaginary heroes, and 
architects, and painters, was presented for the study 
of the antiquarian ; and, what is most strange, no 
one suspected the imposition. To this day, in the 
history of Bristol, by the learned Barrett, may be 
seen copies of the wonders palmed upon him by this 
wonderful stripling : an ancient castle, in a style of 
architecture never seen before nor since ; unique 
towers, fanciful battlements, the coinage of his own 
brain, all passing through the hands of scholars and 
philosophers as veritable gold. And all this by a 
child of eleven or twelve years of age ! Says our 
author : 

u And now a new world had dawned before his 
inner vision ; the sensibilities of the poet were quiv- 
ering in every nerve ; mysterious shapes moved around 
him, which one day he must report to the world — 
shapes, the offspring of that old church, and its tombs 
and monuments, and traceries and emblazonments, 
mingled with the spirit of his solitary readings in 
history, divinity, and antiquities ; and that melan- 



HOWITT'S BEITISH POETS. 



419 



choly foreboding, that Ahnung of the future, as the 
Germans term it, which like a present angel of proph- 
ecy, unseen, but felt, hangs on the heart of youthful 
genius with an overpowering sadness, was spread over 
him like a heavenly cloud, which made the physical 
face of life dreary and insipid to him. ?? 

And he wrote poetry, but with strange perverseness 
still continued the use of his parchment and black 
lead and ocher, and attributed his own productions 
to men long dead and mostly forgotten. It was fame 
enough for him to be deemed the fortunate finder of 
these treasures, the productions, as he averred, of no 
less than eleven different authors, among whom the 
most celebrated were John a Iscam, Maister Canynge, 
and Thomas Kowley ; and truly, had these men writ- 
ten the verses thus fathered upon them, their names 
had been inscribed high up on fame's enduring tem- 
ple. But alas for Chatterton ! His ingenuity was 
too great ; his success ruined him. The critics, the 
knowing ones, were taken in ; and when the fraud 
was at length detected, when the wonder was a thous- 
andfold increased by the discovery that the boy was 
himself the author, why then, instead of clasping him 
to their hearts, and offering their friendly guidance, 
they spurned him as a base impostor, turned him off 
to penury and beggary, to starvation, to death by his 
own hand, to a grave among paupers, unnoticed and 
unknown. " It was a new kind of crime, this en- 
dowment of the republic of literature with enormous 
accessions of wealth ; and, what was more extraordi- 
nary, the endowers were not only denounced as 
thieves, but as thieves from themselves ! Macpher- 



420 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



son and Cliatterton did not assert that they had writ- 
ten new and great poems, which the acute critics 
proved to be stolen from the ancients, Ossian and 
Rowley; that, and their virtuous indignation, we 
might have comprehended; but, on the contrary, 
while the critics protested that Chatterton and Mac- 
pherson themselves were the actual poets, and had 
only put on the masks of the ancients, they treated 
them, not as clever maskers, joining in the witty con- 
ceit, and laughing over it in good-natured triumph, 
but they denounced them in savage terms as base 
thieves, false coiners, damnable impostors ! O glo- 
rious thieves ! glorious coiners ! admirable impostors ! 
would that a thousand other such would appear, to 
fill the hemisphere of England with fresh stars of 
renown !"..." Not thus was execrated and chased 
out of the regions of popularity, and even into a self- 
dug grave, ' the great Unknown, 5 ' the author of 
Waverley. 5 He wore a mask in all peace and honor 
for thirteen years, and not a soul dreamed of denounc- 
ing Sir Walter Scott because he had endeavored to 
palm off his productions as those of Peter Pattison 
or Jedediah Cleishbotham." 

That the youth who thus perished by his own hand, 
in his seventeenth year, had many faults, and grievous 
ones, it were useless to deny ; equally vain to dwell, 
in imagination, upon what he might have been had 
he found upon this broad earth one friend to sympa- 
thize with him, and foster in his soul those aspirations 
which he breathed forth in lines full of trust in divine 
goodness, over which, alas ! despair triumphed. 

Of Gray, whose fame rests securely on one un- 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



421 



equaled elegy, familiar to every reader of the English 
language, our author has gleaned but little of inter- 
est ; while of Goldsmith, the true-hearted Irishman, 
than whom 

<{ No mortal ever left this world of sin 
More like the infant that he entered in 

and of Burns, whose verse, like an electric shock, 
thrills the heart and kindles the eye of the Scotsman 
wherever he wanders, he gives us many details of 
great interest, on which it were pleasant to linger ; 
but we pass to spend a few moments with the bard of 
Olney, the timid, melancholy, yet joyous and buoyant 
Cowper. Contradictory as are these epithets, they 
are applicable, all, to him whose iron creed drove, 
almost, if not quite, to madness that mind which 
bursts forth frequently in loftiest strains of trust, and 
confidence, and rapturous thanksgiving ; is seen un- 
bending itself in sportive letters of the most childlike 
simplicity ; and, as in the feat of the world-renowned 
John Gilpin, delighted, at times, to revel in the fun 
of the broadest farce. Unfortunate was it, for the 
poet and for the world, that he ever saw John New- 
ton, and imbibed from him, in all their chilliness, the 
gloomy dogmas of hyper-Calvinism. The perusal of 
his correspondence with that well-meaning but rigid 
predestinarian, contrasted with his letters to his other 
friends, and more especially to the Unwins, reveals, 
to some extent, the secret of that withering blight 
that preyed so long and so grievously upon him. His 
heart told him of God's impartial love, and echoed 
back, responsive! y, the blessed assurance that " who- 
soever will may take of the water of life freely." 



422 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



Then he pours forth strains of gladness worthy of an 
angel's lyre, and soars aloft, carrying his reader with 
him to listen. 

But soon, fearfully, his creed, interpreted after the 
fashion of the straitest sect of Calvin's followers, 
throws a dark cloud over all this goodly prospect, and 
hides the sunshine of the poet's soul in dark eclipse. 
He gropes, in wandering mazes lost. Election, with 
its fearful counterpart, haunts him like the demon of 
despair. He concludes, as every man not mantled 
with self-complacency must conclude, that if there be 
reprobates he ought to be one ; and, in many of his 
letters, more than intimates his firm conviction that 
in this respect what ought to be, is. This feeling 
sometimes tinges his verse, though not often, with 
hues of saddest melancholy. 

The incidents of his life are familiar ; and his fame 
as a painter of nature, and as a poet inspiring the 
loftiest sentiments, is too well established ever to be 
shaken. 

Still sadder is our author's strain, and far higher 
his admiration, when discoursing of the youthful 
Keats, who died at Rome when he had scarcely 
passed the age of twenty-four. During the three 
years in which he penned all his poems he had the 
consciousness that his disease, the slow-wasting con- 
sumption, was incurable ; and it had pleased us better 
had he left more evidence of the truth of the latter 
part of the line applied to him by our author : 

" He sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven." 

Of course we have no fault to find with our 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



423 



author's tracery of the haunts of Shelley and of 
Byro;^, nor with his estimate of their poetry, what- 
ever be our opinion of his unsuccessful attempts to 
palliate their vices and to apologize for the evils re- 
sulting from their precepts and their example. He 
deplores the fact that the former was in early life the 
avowed champion of atheism, " yet was he honest ;" 
he throws the blame of his expulsion entirely on the 
heads of the college, making his hero a perfect mar- 
tyr ; and appears to deem it an ample atonement for 
his brutality toward his first wife, which resulted in 
her suicide, that she was of humble station, of un- 
congenial mind, and that he bitterly lamented " the 
catastrophe of her death." So of Byron, bringing 
into bold relief every good trait in his character, he 
speaks tenderly, as though his unquestioned genius, 
and the harsh treatment he received from the world, 
accounted for, if they did not justify, his skepticism, 
his utter selfishness, and even his avowed licentious- 
ness. In many respects the two poets were alike. 
Both of noble family, and both unhappy in their 
matrimonial connections ; both haters with the intens- 
ity of bitterness of what they deemed the cant of 
Christianity, and both self-exiled from their native 
land. Shelley was drowned by the sinking of his 
boat in the Gulf of Spezia, at the age of thirty ; and 
Byron, who had been intimately familiar with him 
during his residence in Italy, expired on the classic 
shores of Greece. 

Though he was far inferior as a poet, yet a much 
more readable tribute is dedicated to the pious Crabbe. 
Many interesting facts which were unknown to his 



424 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 

biographer are brought to light by the indefatigable 
researches of our author. In the same unceremoni- 
ous manner too must we pass over the " haunts " 
of that pleasing egotist, that rarest specimen of self- 
esteem, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. His 
poetry is not of a high order, nor is it doomed to 
immortality. Some of his imitations of contempo- 
raneous poets, and especially those attributed to 
Wordsworth, are, in the language of our author, 
" admirably grave quizzes." 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of thir- 
teen children, was born of pious parents, in Devon- 
shire, October 21, 1772. Delicate, and of a timid 
disposition, he found no associates among boys of his 
own age. " I never," says he, " thought as a child, 
never had the language of a child." Solitary, and 
without playfellows, he spent his early years in read- 
ing and meditation. " I never played," he says, 
" except by myself, and then only acting over what I 
had been reading or fancying, or half one, half the 
other, with a stick cutting down weeds and nettles, 
as one of ' the Seven Champions of Christendom.' " 
At the age of ten he was sent to a public school in 
London, where he was roughly treated, flogged, and 
half starved. " There I felt myself alone among six 
hundred playmates." At this school were laid the 
foundation of those bodily sufferings which made his 
after life one scene of torture, and drove him to the 
excessive use of opium. From the school, after an 
unsuccessful effort on his part to be apprenticed to a 
shoemaker, he was sent, at the age of nineteen, to 
Jesus College, Cambridge, where his scholarship 



HOWITT'S BEITISH POETS. 



425 



gained him many honors, but which he soon left, 
embarrassed with debt, and on his way to London 
enlisted as a common soldier. One of the most 
amusing episodes in the life of any literary character 
is the account given by our author of this strange 
enlistment ; of his awkwardness with his arms, and 
especially with his horse ; of his meditations upon 
Caesar and Leonidas, by which he tried to render the 
severity of his daily drills endurable, and to bear the 
taunts of his officers, who never ventured to advance 
him out of the awkward squad ; of his employment 
as letter-writer for the regiment to the wives and 
sweethearts of the soldiers, who, availing themselves 
of his ability and good-nature, nevertheless deemed 
him a " natural," because of his inability to learn his 
exercise ; of his venturing to correct the Greek quo- 
tations of his officers as he stood sentinel at the door ; 
and most especially of his services, faithful and unre- 
quited, as nurse to his sick fellow-soldiers in the 
hospital. 

At length, released from his irksome situation 
through the interposition of friends, he married a 
sister of the wife of his friend Southey ; and under a 
contract to write a volume of poems for thirty guineas, 
he removed to the neighborhood of Bristol, where, 
with his bride, in a little half-furnished cottage, he 
commenced the cares of housekeeping. In his younger 
days he had embraced infidel principles, which he 
abandoned after his marriage, and became for a while 
a Unitarian preacher. For a while he floundered 
through the mazes of Berkeley, Spinoza, Hartley, 
and Kant ; until, wearied and sick at heart, he aban- 



426 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



doned them all, and sought and found rest in the 
bosom of the Established Church. 

Following " the brooding poet with the heavenly 
eyes," our author introduces us successively to the 
lovely and enthusiastic Mrs. Hemans, the victim of 
an unhappy marriage ; and to Miss Landon, better 
known as L. E. L., whose life was imbittered and 
cut short by calumny the most atrocious. Mrs. He- 
mans was born in Liverpool, married at an early 
age, and, deserted by her husband, was left to grap- 
ple single-handed with the world, and to provide for 
and educate her five sons. 

Bravely did she bear up under all her troubles ; 
and, pouring forth lays of sweetness, if the wish of 
her heart to produce some one great poem were un- 
gratified, she succeeded in winning for herself a name, 
and in meeting by her single pen " the exigencies of 
the boys' education." Some of her most admired 
verses were written during her last illness ; and but a 
little while before her death she wrote that " soul-full 
effusion," " Despondency and Aspiration." 

More wonderful than even the wildest of his own 
romances is the life of " the great Wizard of the 
North," Sir Walter Scott. On his unequaled suc- 
cess in the sterile plains of Parnassus, whence he 
drew with his gray goosequill the astounding sum of 
half a million sterling, our author dwells with garru- 
lous wonder ; and with sadness amounting almost to 
tears, gives the history of his reverses, when the 
" thunderbolt of fate had fallen on the great magi- 
cian," whom he styles the " Job of modern times." 
For ourselves, we love to view him best in the days 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



427 



of his adversity, when, by the mismanagement of 
others, his riches, so suddenly amassed, had taken 
wings and fled away. Patient, industrious, and hon- 
est, with honor untarnished, he needed not the pity of 
his friends, while he spent the remaining strength of 
his latter years in the toilsome drudgery of author- 
ship, that he might pay off claims which the laws of 
the land would have sustained him had he refused to 
meet, or the friendly bankrupt act would have wiped 
out, had he permitted it, with a wet sponge. Our 
author traces his homes and haunts, from the house in 
which he was born through his various residences in 
Edinburgh ; dwells, delighted, on the room in Castle- 
street, No. 39, where he wrote most of his earlier 
productions — the house lately occupied by Professor 
Napier, the editor of the Edinburgh Eeview ; and 
with minute particularity describes his world-re- 
nowned residence at Abbotsford. In quick succes- 
sion, after his pecuniary losses, other sorrows fell 
upon him. His wife could not bear up under her 
reverses, and soon died ; a son and daughter were 
prostrated on the couch of lingering sickness ; his 
great publisher and dear friend "died too, of the 
fatal malady of ruined hopes." As in the history of 
most men of eminent genius, there is none to inherit 
his name; and, says his son-in-law, Lockhart, " the 
hope of founding a family died with him." 

Another bard of Scotia follows — Campbell, author 
of " The Pleasures of Hope," by which designation 
he will continue to be, as he was in his life, best 
known ; so much so, that he is said to have felt 
toward it as the Athenian did who was tired of hear- 



428 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



ing Aristides called " the Just." His poems, " Ger- 
trude of Wyoming," " O'Connor's Child," and numer- 
ous others, some of which first appeared in the New 
Monthly Magazine, of which he became editor in 
1820, are also well known and properly appreciated. 
He was not treated with remarkable liberality by his 
publishers ; and it is related that at a dinner-party, 
where were assembled many of the craft, he startled 
them, when called on for a toast, by replying, with 
mock gravity, " Gentlemen, I give you JSTapoleon ; 
he was a fine fellow — he shot a bookseller." He was 
of an amiable disposition, kind-hearted, frank, gen- 
erous. In his latter years he had an accumulation of 
domestic afflictions. He died in 1844, and was buried 
in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. In 
tracing his haunts in the city of the poet's birth, our 
author relates " one of the most curious things " that 
he ever met with. It seems that, accompanied by a 
friend, he called on a cousin of the recently departed 
poet, at whose house Campbell had been wont to 
make his home. After an introduction to Mr. Gray, 
£ " tall, gray man," " and on my asking if he could 
oblige me by informing me where Campbell was 
born, to our great astonishment he replied that he 
really did not know. ' And, indeed,' said he, very 
gravely, 6 what may be your object in making this 
inquiry ? ' Being informed, the tall, gray man reared 
himself to an extraordinary height, and looked very 
blank, as though it was a sort of business very singu- 
lar to him, and quite out of his line. Had my name 
been that of a silver merchant, no doubt it would 
have been instantly recognized ; as it was, it was just 



HOWITT'S BEITISH POETS. 



429 



as much known to him as if it had been Diggery 
Mustapha, the embassador of the Grand Duke him- 
self. He shook his head, looked very solemn, and 
could ' really say nothing to it.' fc What ! 3 I ex- 
claimed, 6 not know where your celebrated cousin was 
born % ' ' Well,' he had an ' idea that he had some 
time heard that it was in High-street.' ' In what 
house ? ' ' Could not say — thought it had been pulled 
down.' ' Could he tell us of any other part of the 
city where Campbell had lived V Tou might just as 
well have asked the tallest coffee-pot in his shop. He 
put on a very forbidding air : " Gentlemen, you will 
excuse me — I have business to attend to. Good 
morning.' Away went Mr. Gray, and away we re- 
treated as precipitately." 

Still pursuing his researches, the gentle Quaker 
" called on the secretaries of the Campbell Club, but 
they, like the tall Mr. Gray, knew nothing of Camp- 
bell. On returning we met another Mr. Gray, a 
brother of the former one. We accosted him with 
the question, but he shook his head, and 6 really did 
not know.' This was rather too much for my gravity, 
and I observed that I supposed the fact was, that 
Campbell was not known at Glasgow at all. This 
remark seemed not quite lost. He replied, gravely, 
' they had heard of him.' " 

The laureate Southey does not appear to have 
been, as a poet, one of our author's favorites ; he 
says nothing of his prose, unequaled, especially in 
biography, by any writer of his day ; and on his 
course as a man he pours vials of unmingled scorn. 
We have given specimens of his laudatory strains ; 



430 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



his vein when his bile is stirred is equally remark- 
able. 

He declares that " spite of the indecencies of By- 
ron's muse, and the orthodox character of Southey's, 
it must be confessed that the former is much less mis- 
chievous than the latter ;" and then goes on to argue 
that, bad as Byron was, reckless, licentious, Southey, 
by his poems, and especially by his conduct, has done 
more harm to the cause of truth and justice. Most 
ludicrous, indeed, is the account, given by Lockhart, 
of the indignant rejection of the offer of the laureate- 
ship by Scott, and its ready acceptance by the double- 
dyed radical who wrote " Wat Tyler" and the 
" Botany Bay Eclogues ;" and our author contends, 
with great plausibility, that the sudden change in his 
sentiments had a peculiar effect on his poetry; in 
which, though many beauties are to be found, he 
" never seems to be at home." His verses are speci- 
mens of beautiful manufacture, rather than a part of 
himself. He was, however, one of the most industrious 
of men, prudent, and, in all his domestic relations, 
faultless. Late in life he married a second wife, the 
sweet poetess, Caroline Bowles, who attended him 
with untiring assiduity during the tedious years of 
mental imbecility into which he fell soon after their 
marriage. 

After a few pages devoted to the graceful Joanna 
Baillie, in her quiet retreat at Hampstead, our 
author passes to Rydal 31ount, the home for more 
than thirty years of his most especial favorite, 
"Wordsworth. Serene in his old age, the friend of 
Coleridge and of Southey, and, indeed, of all the 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



481 



writers of note of the last generation, the poet was 
passing away amid all the blessings of life, and in 
the enjoyment of all the honors that his fellow-men 
could confer. Tourists and travelers from all parts of 
the world called upon him, eager to see him and take 
him by the hand. " My last remaining wish," was 
the message sent in by a visitor, who, it seems, called 
at an untimely hour, "is to shake hands with Mr. 
Wordsworth." Poetry had been his business all 
through life, and he had gone on, heedless alike of 
frowns and flattery, erecting for himself an enduring 
monument, from the top of which it was amusing to 
look down upon the snarling curs that yelped at him 
in his progress. " This will never do," said the man 
who " did the slashing " for the Edinburgh Review 
as he introduced to his readers the " Excursion," in 
which he declared there was neither poetry nor com- 
mon sense, " from the hour that the driveler squatted 
himself down in the sun to the end of his preaching." 
To the pages of the same erudite journal was the 
world indebted for a mathematical demonstration of 
the absolute impossibility of crossing the Atlantic by 
steam ; and there too may still be read witty sarcasms 
on the project of traveling by railroads, and the ex 
cathedra denunciation of Grey, the author of the 
railway system, as a madman worthy of Bedlam. It 
is possible that the critic has since been whirled along 
the land by the power of steam ; that he may have 
been told that the same agent is every day transport- 
ing thousands across the deep blue sea; 'and in his 
garret may have heard the taunt flung back upon him 
from universal Christendom, " This will do ! " 



432 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



In succession, our indefatigable tracker of poetic 
haunts introduces to our more familiar acquaintance 
Montgomery ; the fortunate and accurate Landor, 
whose prose is better than his poetry ; Leigh Hunt, 
the friend of Byron and Shelley, and for a long time 
the caustic editor of the " Examiner Rogers, rich 
alike in fancy and in purse ; Moore, felicitous in his 
management of rhythm, but who, we are glad to 
know, would have given " a great portion of his fame 
to be able to cancel forever " many of his earlier poems, 
and who, at the age of sixty-six, still sat at his desk 
and worked for honest bread ; Elliott, from whose 
poems our author quotes largely ; J ohn Wilson, the 
professor, prose-writer, poet, critic, from whom it was 
unnecessary to quote ; Proctor, better known by 
his nom de guerre, Barry Cornwall ; and Tennyson, 
^who moves on his way through life, " heard, but by 
the public unseen," and of whose whereabouts our 
author was obliged to confess that he knew little. He 
was not then the laureate. But we must close with 
a brief sketch of the bard of Sheffield. 

James Montgomery was born in Ayrshire, Scot- 
land, November 4, 1771. His father was the minis- 
ter of the Moravian Brethren in that place, in the 
simple faith of which devoted people the son was 
educated, and to which he adhered through the 
changing scenes of life to the day of death. In his 
sixth year his parents were sent as missionaries to the 
slaves in the West Indies, where in a little while they 
both died, while their son was a student at the semi- 
nary of the Brethren in Yorkshire. He wrote verses 
when but ten years of age ; and an ardent desire to 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



433 



distinguish, himself as a poet interfered with the 
studies to which his friends had devoted him, and 
thwarted the plan of the Brethren to send him in the 
footsteps of his father as a missionary of the cross. 
Leaving the seminary, he was placed in a retail shop 
near Wakefield ; wheuce, although he had been 
treated with kindness, he privately absconded with 
an almost empty pocket in quest of fame and fortune. 
Through many discouragements and trials he at length 
found his way to London, the great object of his 
youthful ambition, where, to his utmost consterna- 
tion, he was advised by a respectable publisher, to 
whom he showed a volume of his manuscripts, not to 
print them. He then turned his hand to prose, and, 
seeking another bookseller, presented for his accept- 
ance an eastern tale. The man of trade did not 
deign to read a line beyond the title, but, counting 
the pages, and the lines on a page, civilly returned 
the copy, with the heart-appalling words, " It wont 
do." At length the gay vision which had haunted 
his imagination began to grow dim, and after a series 
of disappointments and mortifications he gladly ac- 
cepted a situation which promised him bread, if not 
fame, in the office of a newspaper at Sheffield. After 
two years in this service, a gentleman, to whom he 
was personally almost an entire stranger, but who 
seems to have formed a just estimate of his talents, 
enabled the poet to become himself the publisher of 
the " Sheffield Iris." He entered upon this office in 
tempestuous times, and when England, and indeed 
all Europe, was mad with political excitement. 
Tw T ice in the course of a few years he was fined and 

28 



434 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



imprisoned for what were strangely enough deemed 
libels. The first was the publication of some verses 
written by an Irish clergyman, in which the judge 
succeeded in persuading the jury that there was a 
libel on the war then raging between France and 
England, although on the trial it was proved that 
the poetry in question was written nine months before 
the war began. His other " libel " was a too truthful 
account of the butchery of his fellow-citizens by the 
soldiery, who were called out to quell a riot in the 
streets of Sheffield. Three months' imprisonment 
and a fine of £20 was his punishment for the former ; 
for the latter, six months' imprisonment and £30. 
Howitt, in the preparation of the volumes before us, 
visited the cell in which the poet was confined, and 
where, in his hours of loneliness, he penned some of 
his sweetest verses. He describes it, as was right, with 
the same minuteness he does the other " haunts " — 
cottages, gardens, palaces — of England's gifted sons. 
Fearless in the discharge of his duties, zealous for 
what he deemed the right, neat and nervous in his 
editorials, and not seldom enriching the columns of 
his paper with poetry of a high order, it is not won- 
derful that his patronage increased, and that in his 
later years the poet realized, in a good degree, the 
visions of his boyhood. 

His poetry, at times indignantly severe, as in his 
fearful delineations of the horrors of slavery and the 
slave-trade in "The West Indies;" glowing with 
patriotism and love of liberty, as in the " Wanderer 
of Switzerland;" soaring on imagination's loftiest 
wing, as in the "Pelican Island /" or devoted to the 



HOWITT'S BRITISH POETS. 



435 



unappreciated but unparalleled missionary heroism of 
his own beloved Moravians as in "Greenland" is 
everywhere imbued with the sentiments and doctrines 
of a pure Christianity. 

To Montgomery was ever present a higher motive, 
a holier purpose, than the amusement of his readers. 
He aims to make them wiser, better, happier. In 
him, after all, was fulfilled the fondest wish of his 
parents. He is a minister of God, a herald of glad 
tidings ; not indeed, as they hoped, to one tribe or to 
one congregation, for the brief day allotted to those 
who thus labor in the Lord's vineyard, but to untold 
myriads in either hemisphere, who, charmed by the 
music of his verse, and imbibing from it lessons of 
benevolence and love, shall be thereby attracted to 
its central glory, the cross of Christ. 



436 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



A word or two in the reader's ear before mounting 
my stilts, and assuming editorial gravity and the 
plural pronoun. And first, it becomes me to express 
my satisfaction with the compliments and candid 
laudation bestowed on my elaborate article on the 
New York Directory. A grave doctor of divinity 
tells me that he has, himself, been suspected of being 
its author ; and I saw, by his countenance, that he 
felt flattered by the soft impeachment. As to the 
opinions of the press, laudatory of myself and my 
successful attempt to give a little ponderosity to these 
pages, I had thought of requesting the printer to 
insert a few of them on the cover of the magazine ; 
but my innate modesty revolts at it as yet, though 
very probably I shall get the better of such squeam- 
ishness in due time. If I had yielded to the tempta- 
tion, I should have preferred such notices as are short 
and pithy, if the printer could have found them, as 
for instance : 

There is a Hercules among us, and we knew it not.— -Gassy Ga- 
zette. 

A review as is a review — orthodox, oracular, ornate, and original.— 

Utopian Standard. 

The very Polyphemus of reviewers; what he don't know is not 
worth knowing. — Salt River Clapper. 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 437 



We are at a loss which most to admire, the reviewer's fecundity of 
invention, his profundity of thought, or the rotundity of his style. — 
Sham-gammon Bang-up. 

Such notices would have created a sensation, and 
assisted those who have not had the happiness of 
reading the article referred to in giving an unbiased 
opinion of its merits. I am not anxious, however, to 
obtain a reputation prematurely, for I have observed 
that fruit thus ripened rots easily ; although I must 
confess to a hankering like that of the poet when he 
says : 

" If fame has ready for my brow 
A laurel, let me have it now, 
While I'm alive to wear it," 

for I never appreciated very highly the value, to a 
dead man, of a laurel leaf hanging upon his tomb- 
stone. 

But there is something better than fame, and more 
to be desired than the laurel in these dear-potato 
days. The reader's sagacity will detect my meaning 
when he notices at the end of this, and all my future 
articles, if the printer does as I tell him, a dagger ! 
What do you think of " The Dagger Papers " as 
the title of a volume to be published hereafter, bound 
in red muslin, puffed in the papers, placarded upon 
the fences, and hawked about by ragged urchins in 
every rail car ? As a suitable motto for the title-page 
of the proposed volume, I have thought of these lines 
from Shakspeare : 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand ? Come let me clutch thee. — Macbeth, 



438 



KEVIEWS AIS T D ESSAYS. 



But enough on that point, lest I be thought merce- 
nary. There is only one other subject that I wish to 
touch upon, and that is the opinion, somewhat freely 
expressed, that the first selection for my editorial 
prowess, the volume upon which I fleshed my maiden 
sword, was too common and well known. A most 
asinine objection ! as if it does not evince keener 
perceptive faculties to discover pearls in a dunghill 
than gold coins and bank notes in the window of a 
Wall-street money-changer ! ifowever, I am deter- 
mined, if it be possible, to please all parties ; and for 
the delectation of those given to grumbling at the 
food set before them, and at the same time to electrify 
the rest of mankind, I select for this, my second quar- 
terly appearance, a work which not one of my read- 
ers ever saw. Are you startled at this announcement, 
and do you wonder how I venture to make it so broad 
and unqualified ? Ah ! that is one of the secrets of 
reviewing which I will not reveal just yet ; but if you 
are half as acute as the late Sydney Smith, who once 
reviewed a book that existed only in his imagination, 
perhaps you will unravel the mystery before reaching 
the dagger. I shall dissect these volumes with un- 
sparing impartiality. To do otherwise, I may say as 
Jamie Thomson, the Scotch poet, said, when asked 
one day, about noon, why he didn't get out of bed, 
" I hae nae motive*" The volumes were not sent to 
me to be reviewed, and hence I am under no special 
obligation to the publisher, and shall not even men- 
tion his name, which I certainly ought to do had he 
not neglected the courtesy due to the craft. I hope this 
will be a warning to him and to all other booksellers. 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



439 



And now to business. The printer will please 
insert the title of the work to be reviewed in the 
usual italic style, with the omission above indicated : 

A Pilgrimage to Harlem, by James Augustus Pilgarlique, with Copious 
Notes, an Index on a New Plan, an Introduction by the Author's Moth- 
er-in-law, and Likenesses of the Author's Family, from Daguerreotypes 
ly Brady. Two volumes, 8vo., pp. 616, 742. 

What are we coming to ? Is it not preposterous to 
dilate a railroad ride of seven miles into two huge 
octavoes ? And then, in the name of common sense, 
where was the necessity of prefixing an introduction 
to so trivial an affair ; and what was the peculiar fit- 
ness of the author's mother-in-law, that she should be 
employed to write it ? Fair and softly, reader ! It 
is indeed but seven miles from the City Hall to Har- 
lem, for it is not the city of that name in Holland to 
which the pilgrim journeyed, but its little namesake 
on the northeastern extremity of the Island of Man- 
hattan. But what says the poet ? 

"That life is long, which answers life's great end." 

a sentiment that has passed for an unquestionable 
truth ever since it was first given to the world ; and 
the mere substitution of the word journey for life — 
and human life, if we mistake not, has been compared 
to a journey — will prove conclusively that Mr. Pil- 
garlique's pilgrimage was long, because it answered 
the great end he had in view, which evidently was 
the production of these volumes. If that be not 
sound reasoning, please go over it again, and tell us 
where it is cracked. 

Besides, our author, in these lengthened details, is 
but following the prevailing fashion of the age in 



440 



REVIEWS AiTD ESSAYS. 



which it is our felicity to live. Brevity and concise- 
ness have had their day. He that makes the biggest 
book is the best fellow ; and if people do not read all 
that is written, it certainly is not the fault of authors, 
nor, indeed, have they any occasion to trouble their 
heads about it, provided always that the people buy. 
In the latest London newspapers we find advertise- 
ments of forthcoming publications, which may possi- 
bly cast our author's details into the shade ; and, as 
everything is long or short only by comparison, the 
time may come when Pilgarlique's Pilgrimage, in 
two volumes octavo, will be cited as a work of unjust- 
ifiable brevity. Messrs. Longman, Brown, Green, & 
Longmans advertise, for instance, " Moore's Memoirs, 
Edited by the Bight Honorable Lord John Bussell, 
M.P., Yols I to YI ;" and announce " Yols. YH and 
YIII as nearly ready." There is no intimation that 
the work will end with Yol. YIII. It may, for aught 
that is apparent, 

" Stretch out until the crack of doom." 

Then again, as to the propriety of an introduction 
by a different hand from that of the author, we may 
observe that Mr. Pilgarlique has many illustrious 
precedents. They will readily occur to the reader, 
and among them he may find not a few as pertinent 
to the subject-matter of the volume introduced as are 
the remarks and observations of Mrs. Dowdenny, our 
author's devoted mother-in-law. She is evidently a 
strong-minded female : by birth, as she informs us, En- 
glish, and by her general knowledge, and her acquaint- 
ance with the author, quite as well qualified to write 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 441 

an introduction as the generality of those who volun- 
teer for such purposes. Her style is not florid, like 
that of her countryman, Babington Macaulay, nor 
perhaps quite so smooth as Washington Irving's. It 
more resembles that of Lady Blessington in her best 
days, and occasionally reminds us of several illustrious 
authors whose names we have forgotten. We must 
favor the reader with a specimen. 

After a carefully digested genealogical elucidation 
of the Dowdenny family, to which she was united in 
her twenty-first year, and a still more careful analysis 
of the Fogarty stock, from which she sprung, and 
which, by the way, she traces up, with wondrous 
clearness, to the time of the great King Alfred, she 
goes on to inform us that — 

" It is now ten years since bereavement came upon 
me in all its hollow-heartedness, and Dowdenny, my 
own Ambrose, was borne to his last resting-place be- 
neath the sods and the clods, not of a valley, but of 
a hilly eminence in the Cypress Cemetery. He was 
a man of a thousand : industrious and prudent, and 
for the most part sober ; by profession, in the latter 
part of his life, an undertaker ; but when I first be- 
came acquainted with him he kept a chandler's shop 
in a little street running out of the Strand, and 
within the sound of Bow-bells. When we came to 
this land of liberty, my daughter Creeshy, as we 
called her in our. moments of endearment, Lucretia 
Agnes, as she was christened, afterward and at this 
present writing, Mrs. Pilgarlique, was a little toddler, 
fall of the most engaging and truly English feminine 
graces, and was married to her present husband, or 



442 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 

as we say in this country, united to her present part- 
ner, after a courtship of only six weeks, leastwise I 
think it was not more than that, though Lucretia 
Agnes says it was seven, and James Augustus, 
that is, Mr. Pilgarlique, says he doesn't know how 
long it was. And here T will transcribe the poetry 
written by myself at that period, so intensely inter- 
esting to maternal feelings, and which only the heart 
of a mother can fully appreciate. It was sent to the 
6 National,' but, for some reason best known to the 
editor, was never printed, or, if it was, I never saw 
it ; and Lucretia Agnes was dressed in pure white 
muslin on the evening of the ceremony, I having, as 
I remember my mother had, a mortal prejudice 
against anything else as suitable and appropriate for 
a ceremonial of such solemnity. 

" TO LUCRETIA AGNES ON HER WEDDING-DAY. 

BY MATRONALIS. 

" Instinctively sweet is the fond recollection. 

The earliest buddings of nature and art ; 
And gracefully pure is the bride's retrospection, 

Resulting in memories shrined in the heart. 

" And deeply cerulean, the azure above us 
Betokens the virtues which beam from thine eye ; 

To know there are those who most tenderly love us, 
Like roses of Sharon, or stars in the sky. 

" Eare thee well, then, farewell, thou most delicate maiden, 
In the pure realms of union connubially bound ; 

With ambrosial nectar thy true heart is laden ; 
Let him guard well the treasure so luckily found. 

" For he knows not its value as yet he will know it, 
In affliction and sorrow, if they should befall ; 

As, mutely receiving this lay from the poet, 

He dreams not of sorrow, nor wormwood, nor gall." 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 443 



Mr. Pilgarlique informs us, in a foot note, that the 
little word italicised in the third stanza refers to him- 
self. We thought it likely when first perusing the 
poem, but feel gratified to have our conjecture con- 
verted into certainty on such high authority. As to 
the poem itself, the reader will form his own judg- 
ment, bearing in mind the fact that if there are some 
portions of it which he does not understand, the fault 
may be in himself ; and that, if the connection be 
not perfectly clear, the poet is not to be blamed, see- 
ing it is not certain that she intended it should be. 
Like the recently-published poetry of Tennyson, it 
admits of repeated perusals, and even then leaves the 
mind not perfectly satisfied. The poetry, considered 
merely with reference to its rhyme and rhythm, we 
pronounce faultless. The rhymes are perfect, which 
is more than can be said, always, of Mrs. Hemans or 
Mrs. Sigourney; and the rhythmus, by which the 
unlearned reader will understand the regular suc- 
cession of arses and theses, or percussions and remis- 
sions of voice on words or syllables, is equal to any- 
thing we have met with lately in daily papers or other 
periodicals. 

Time and space would both fail us to follow 
Mrs. Dowdenny through the successive incidents 
introduced by her with so much skill. The let- 
ters of her friends in Europe, especially those of 
her maternal uncle, who, we take it, is somewhat 
of a wag as well as an ironmonger, and the inci- 
dents in the life of Creeshy, afterward Mrs. Pilgar- 
lique, while at school, are told in the fond mother's 
peculiar style, which, for the benefit of our classical 



4M 



BEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



readers, we may designate as a specimen of the purest 
FiyfiapcdX* and have quite as much relevancy to the 
subject-matter of her son-in-law's volumes as the 
writers of introductions usually present. We must 
be indulged, however, in a word or two on an event 
which called forth what we esteem the highest effort 
of Mrs. Dowdenny's muse. This was the birth of her 
two grandchildren, twins, and both boys. They are 
introduced with great propriety, as they were both 
participants in the Pilgrimage which forms the title 
of their father's volumes, and their daguerreotypes 
were taken by Brady at the same time with those of 
their parents and their grandmother. They are cer- 
tainly interesting children. Their names, one called 
after the lamented Dowdenny, and the other in honor 
of a friend of Mr. Pilgarlique, are Ambrose and Ham- 
ilton. They are now, as we are told, in their ninth 
year, and both, though Ambrose is said to be subject 
to croup, a little inclined to be mischievous. This 
we gather not only from the incidents of the Pilgrim- 
age itself, as related by Mr. Pilgarlique, but from a 
hint or two casually dropped by his mother-in-law in 
her introduction. That when she called them by 
their abbreviated names, Ham and Am, they should 
pretend not to know which she means, and that Am 
should come when Ham was called, and vice versa, is 
truly funny, and is rather a slur upon the old lady's 
Anglification. But we are detaining the reader from 
the poetry. Here it is ; we can spare space for only 
one stanza. It shall be the most Tennysonian of the 

* We acknowledge our indebtedness to that prince of reviewers, 
Southey, for this expressive Grsecism. 



PILGAKLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 445 



entire poem. It is so much like the style of the 
laureate that it is hard to believe that one or the 
other did not plagiarize ; but thought is a strangely 
meandering thing, and it is not in our hearts to judge 
rashly, lest some one hereafter mete out unto our- 
selves the same measure, or as the bard of Avon 
has it, 

"Commend th' ingredients of the poisoned chalice 
To our own lips." 

Here, then, is Mrs. Dowdenny's stanza on the mem- 
orable occasion referred to : 

"Who's that that is calling me 

"With so loud and earnest a call ? 

'Tis a voice and a tone that are known to me ; 

It tells that there's joy in our house to-day ; 

'Tis the voice of my son-in-law, stalwart and tall ! 

Singing aloud of his cherished wife 

This beautiful morning, the tenth of May. 

And the grass looks green in its bright array 

This beautiful, beautiful morn ; 

They have come at last on the stage of life, 

And my daughter's two boys are born." 

For our own justification, no less than for the grati- 
fication of the reader, we append a stanza from 
" Maud," the latest effort of Mr. Tennyson, in which 
the reader will detect a surprising similarity, not only 
in the structure of the lines, the meter, and the dim 
vagueness of the sentiments, but also in the words 
chosen for the rhythmical cadenzas : 

FROM " MAUD." 

BY ALFRED TENNYSON, D. C. L., POET LAUREATE. 

" A voice by the cedar tree 

In the meadow under the hall ! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 



U6 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 
A martial song like a trumpet's call! 
Singing alone in the morning of life, 
In the happy morning of life and of May, 
Singing of men that in battle array, 
Ready in heart and ready in hand, 
March with banner, and bugle, and fife, 
To the death, for their native land." 

In versification, both poems are on a par ; in indis- 
tinctness, and thus giving more play to the reader's 
fancy, we think the laureate excels ; but in conveying 
knowledge to the mind, which, to be sure, is but a 
secondary affair, he must evidently yield to the lady. 
Mrs. Dowdenny, however, had something to write 
about, which cannot be said of Mr. Tennyson, and 
therefore we are content, if Queen Victoria insists 
upon it, that he shall still be the laureate. 

Having thus removed every reasonable objection to 
the length of the volumes under review, and to the 
introduction, with its beautiful mosaic of prose and 
poetry, we come to the solid matter of the Pilgrim- 
age itself. How it came to be undertaken, and why 
it is called a Pilgrimage, may be gathered from the 
author, who, it will be observed, plunges at once m 
medias res, which Horace calls 

" The true, heroic turnpike road." 

" I was in the midst of a very pleasant dream 
about authorship, and the temple of fame, and things 
of that kind, when I was suddenly roused to con- 
sciousness, and the dull realities of life, by a nudge 
in the ribs. So startling was it, that I may say, if 
the reader will tolerate a little poetic license, 

" 1 Obstupui ; steteruntque comae, vox faucibus haes!^ 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 447 



"My first impression was, so strangely are we 
affected by events of a bomb-icular nature, occurring 
at that transitional moment between sleep and wide- 
awakeness — that interregnum between the reign of 
Somnus and that of the rosy-cheeked Apollo — that I 
thought two large octavo volumes had fallen upon 
me and crushed out all my internal sensibilities. It 
was, however, as I soon discovered, only my wife 
Creeshy, or, as it would be more becoming to style her 
in this her first introduction to the literary world, 
Mrs. James Augustus Pilgarlique. 

" 6 G-ussy, dearest,' said she, as soon as she knew I 
was awake, and I knew, as soon as returning con- 
sciousness dawned upon me, that she was in excellent 
good humor — I knew it not less by the endearing 
terms she used than by the mellifluous tones of her 
voice — • Gussy, dearest, why not take half a holiday 
this afternoon and go to Harlem ? ■ 

" ' To Harlem ! ' said I, affecting the most profound 
amazement. 

"'Yes, there's to be a Strawberry Festival 
there. The tickets are only half a dollar, and the 
profits are all to go to the Church. So you see, lovey, 
the boys, and dear mother, and you and I can all go, 
have as many strawberries and as much ice cream as 
we can eat, and at the same time be religious and 
charitable.' 

" 6 Humph,' said I, " kill two birds with one stone, 
hey ! ' 

" Now the fact is, I was aware of the festival, and 
had already made up my mind in favor of the jour- 
ney ; but having enjoyed connubial bliss long enough 



448 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



to know a thing or two, I submitted to be persuaded, 
and allowed her to answer all my objections. My 
reasons were of a two-fold nature. To say nothing 
of the faint idea just then beginning to sprout, and 
which has resulted in these two well-printed and 
beautifully-illustrated volumes, I had learned by ex- 
perience that my better half greatly exulted in get- 
ting the better of me in an argument, and I knew, if 
I submitted to be conquered, she would be in good 
humor all day; and then if anything unpleasant 
should occur — if either of the boys should make him- 
self sick, for instance, or Mrs. Dowdenny, my mother- 
in-law, as the reader knows, should lose her snuff-box, 
or leave her parasol in the car — why, then, whose 
fault was it? and who insisted upon going? Does 
the reader take ? "—Vol. I, pp. 97, 98. 

It is rather beneath the dignity of our official posi- 
tion to deal in mere verbal criticism, else should we 
have a word or two to say upon some portions of the 
above-quoted phraseology. The word nudge, as a 
noun, strikes us as novel and expressive ; but wide- 
awakeness is an awkward compound, and smacks too 
much of the Nat Willis currency. But let it all pass. 
"What we have legitimate cause to find fault with is 
the author's avowed semi-duplicity. We had intended 
to be very severe on this point ; but just as we com- 
menced the objurgatory sentence it occurred to us, 
that having no personal acquaintance with Mrs. Pil- 
garlique, and the idea of keeping her " in good humor 
the whole day " — well, let that pass too. As the poet 
Bays, 

" Suam cuique," 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 449 

which means, different females require different treat- 
ment. 

As the reader will have perceived, our author is 
not carried away by the specious idea of having a 
day's pleasure, and his money's worth of cream and 
strawberries, and then charging the expense to the 
account of charity and religion. Admirable as are 
his remarks on this point, we shall not weary the 
reader by quoting them. At the same time his milk 
of human kindness is so creamy, that he goes out of 
his way to apologize for those who thus impose upon 
themselves and upon Christianity. He has a large 
plaster even for that class who make a frolic of a 
camp-meeting, and very happily illustrates the com- 
patibility of true religion with a vast amount of igno- 
rance. The little illustrative story which our author 
heard from a clergyman whom he met in the cars, 
bound also to the festival, has in it a moral which will 
draw tears from the reflecting, after the laughter which 
a first perusal provokes has died away in the distance : 

" An ignorant negro woman, a slave on a planta- 
tion in Georgia, was converted, and joined the Church. 
She was regular in her attendance, whenever she had 
an opportunity, at all religious meetings. She could 
sing and shout with her fellow-bondmen and bond- 
women, and really did enjoy herself hugely. Un- 
fortunately, she had not been taught, with any great 
care, the practical duties of religion ; or, if she had, 
she didn't understand them just as white folks do. 
One day a goose was missing from her master's flock. 
Dinah, who occupied a little hut, where she brought 
up, as best she could, her own brood of young 'uns, 

29 



450 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 

was suspected of the theft and charged with it. She 
denied her guilt with vehement protestations. The 
crime, however, was clearly proved, one of her own 
sons turning massa's evidence against her. Dinah 
had stolen the goose, and cooked and eaten it one 
night, when the father of her boys, a slave from a 
neighboring plantation, had paid her a visit. Of 
course Dinah was flogged, not only for her own sake, 
but for the edification of all hands on the estate. A 
week or two afterward the communion was to be 
administered, and Dinah, arrayed in her best, with a 
clean bandanna on her head, was on her way to the 
meeting-house. 

" 6 Why, Dinah,' said her mistress, ' you don't think 
of such a thing as going to partake of the sacrament, 
do you ? 5 

" 4 And why not, missy ? 5 was Dinah's prompt 
response. 

a 6 Why not ? Surely you are not fit for such a 
sacred duty. Have you forgot the goose ? ' 

" 4 Hi ! ' said Dinah. 6 Ise not gwine to turn my 
back on my bressed Massa for no old goose.' "- — 
Vol. I, p. 361. 

Passing over the preliminaries, which are detailed 
with sufficient minuteness in the first volume, the 
second opens with the Pilgarlique family snugly 
seated in one of the cars of the 2-30 train ; and now 
the material increases so fast upon our author's hands 
that much of it, according to the custom of the best 
biographers and tourists of the present day, has to be 
condensed powerfully — in fact, reduced to mere pulp 
and essence. The reader will be surprised when we 



PILGAKLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 451 



assure him that the whole account of the journey by 
horse-power, that is-, from the City Hall to Thirty- 
second-street, is crowded into nine chapters, occupy- 
ing but little more than one third of the second vol- 
ume. And yet so wonderful is our author's skill, 
that nothing of moment appears to have been omitted, 
and certainly nothing is slurred over. In this respect 
Mr. Pilgarlique reminds us of the Milesian who, to the 
surprise of his employer, packed a quart of brandy 
in a pint decanter. But that was a long time ago, 
when as yet the star of total abstinence had not 
culminated. 

We are at a loss to determine whether our author 
is most au fait of topographical descriptions, of bio- 
graphical sketches, or of the analysis of purely philo- 
sophical problems. As specimens of his acuteness in 
this last-named department, we might refer to his 
masterly discussion of the question, " Why do rail-car 
conductors always sport gold watch-chains ? " which, 
so far as our memory serves us, we never saw eluci- 
dated with a thousandth part of Mr. Pilgarlique's 
translucency. His chapter on that subject, the fourth 
of the second volume, ought to give him a high posi- 
tion among the savans who meet periodically in this 
metropolis for the discussion of questions of equal 
importance; and which, when discussed, sometimes 
lead to results quite as satisfactory and beneficial. 
Less ingenious perhaps, but evincing equal sagacity, 
is our author's statement of the arguments, pro and 
con, " on the probability of a brakeman's rising to 
the position of a conductor." It reminds us of the 
profound investigations of the justly-celebrated Sir 



452 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



Joseph Banks, who, according to the veracious Pin- 
dar, after protracted labor, succeeded in solving the 
question whether the genus Pulix might not be ele- 
vated into that of the genus Cancer, or in other words, 
for we write not for the learned only, whether or not, 
in due time, and with proper care, fleas might not 
become lobsters. 

It were using too high-sounding a title to designate 
as biographies Mr. Pilgarlique's brief sketches of the 
various prominent characters he met with on his 
journey outward. We may call them pen-paintings, 
or, if the reader insists on something less hackneyed 
and less vernacular, we suggest a word of our own 
coining, and call them plumo-chromatics. The best 
of these, we incline to think, are those of the rival 
orange-women, who thrust their fruit into the car 
window as it was dragging its slow length down the 
declivity of Center-street, the two young gentlemen 
who boldly ran through each car in succession, prof- 
fering all sorts of information for three cents, and 
more especially the youth whose cry of " Lozenges " 
was strangely mistaken for sausages by our author's 
respected mother-in-law. Those are eloquent touches 
of nature as Mr. Pilgarlique traces the early history 
of this young gentleman, and how appropriately does 
he quote the lines, 

" What an excellent thing did heaven bestow on man 
When it did give him a good stomach," 

as he examines the prandial entertainment which the 
lozenge-boy calls grub. 

As was fitting, however, these matters are intro- 
duced by our author rather episodically. His main 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 453 



power is devoted to the topography of his eventful 
journey. The purlieus of the Five Points, within 
scenting distance of which locality the party passed ; 
the Tombs, that magnificent monument of the ten- 
derness with which the philanthropy of New York 
treats alike the unfortunate and the depraved; the 
New York Dispensary, where applicants are inocu- 
lated for nothing, and whence drugs of undoubted 
purity are dispensed gratis; the establishments for 
the manufacture of Cut Glass, Piano Fortes, and 
Iron Sailings ; the shops of Pawnbrokers and 
venders of second-hand Clothing and second-foot 
Boots ; that great pecuniary speculation, the Odd- 
Fellows' Hall, and that model of cleanliness, from 
which the citizens derive their dinners, known as 
The Center Market, are described with wonderful 
zest and great minuteness. On the last-named topic 
our author catches some of his mother-in-law's spirit, 
and becomes poetical ; that is, he quotes, with varia- 
tions, the poetry of others. He never, so far as we 
have observed, perpetrates rhymes of his own. Is 
not this a glorious description ? 

" Looming up in the distance, a model of architec- 
tural skill, but not as yet perceptible by all the senses, 
we approximate to that desideratum, surrounded on 
the exterior by quadrupeds of that internecine class 
who trade in the blood of innocent lambs. And now 
its fragrance steals upon us like the breeze of 

"The sweet South, from off a bed of violets,'' 

becoming more and more perceptible until, as we 
circumgyrate the corner of the street which bears the 



454 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



magnificent name ' Grand,' the odor becomes poten- 
tial, and our party appreciate the feelings of the 

' Land seeking Genoese, 
"When the sweet breeze from woods of palm, 
And orange groves and fields of balm, 
Blew o'er the Haytien seas.' " — Yol. ii, p. 381 

It required a great deal of skill to describe with 
sufficient originality to keep his readers awake, such 
well known localities as the Bowery; the Fourth 
Avenue, and the calico church thereon ; Union Square, 
which is not a square, but an oval ; the towering edi- 
fice known as the ticket-office, at Twenty-sixth-street ; 
the stifling tunnel ; the pranks of horned quadrupeds, 
from whose udders is supposed to come the funda- 
mental principle which eventuates in the compound 
called milk by the Gothamites ; and the residences of 
the squatter sovereignty which adorn both sides of 
the road, like carbuncles on the fiery proboscis of an 
anti-Maine-law practitioner. But our author has 
overcome these difficulties quite as well as the gener- 
ality of European tourists. There is a vein of origin- 
ality all through his narrative which it were vain — 
pardon the pun, it was unintentional — to look for in 
any other recently published volume of travels. The 
reason may be that he had no "guide-book" from 
which to copy. 

On arriving at their destination Mr. Pilgarlique 
pays a well-merited compliment to the railroad com- 
pany, for the matchless accommodations provided for 
travelers. His whole party were reminded forcibly 
of life's uncertainty, as, stepping from the car, they 
were within an inch or so of being crushed to 



pilgaklique's pilgkimage. * 455 



mummy by a downward train. Feelings of that en- 
nobling sentiment, gratitude, were excited by their 
narrow escape ; and if their hearts were made better 
thereby, it is not easy to compute the amount of their 
obligations to the company, who are certainly entitled 
to the credit of its originating cause. Little Ambrose 
was saved almost by miracle from the devouring fangs 
of the cow-catcher ; and the gratification the whole 
party derived from the unanswerable question of the 
brakeman, "Why didn't you get out on the other 
side ? " must have been exceedingly soothing to his 
mother's feelings. Certainly much more so than 
would have been the most elaborate elegy from the 
pen of Mrs. Dowdenny if the child had been killed. 

In our author's descriptions of Harlem, and its 
almost innumerable public edifices and scenes of 
interest, its revolutionary associations, and its ample 
provision for the liquid wants of the community, our 
author is graphically eloquent, and for the most part 
correct. Like the generality of recent travelers, how- 
ever, Mr. Pilgarlique imposes a little upon the cre- 
dulity of his readers ; and at times, as is perfectly 
natural, draws upon his imagination for his facts. 
Now, however much we may be gratified personally 
by such ticklings of the fancy, our position as a re- 
viewer enjoins upon us the necessity of sternly rebuk- 
ing everything of the kind. We assert, then, that 
there is no castle visible from the stand-point whereon 
our travelers were in such imminent danger ; and 
that Mount Morris, of which Mr. Pilgarlique gives 
so splendid a description, exists only in posse. True, 
there is an edifice known as a land-office, which has 



456 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 

a castellated appearance, and is an architectural mar- 
vel ; and true, also, there is an eminence bearing the 
euphonious appellation of Snake Hill, and which, 
upon some of the corporation maps, is, we believe, 
called Mount Morris. But then how could you, Mr. 
Pilgarlique, and you the father of a family, how could 
you magnify these matters as you have done, unless 
indeed you were writing for posterity ? and in that 
case, of course, we have no objection to make, be- 
cause we do not pretend to know what may be 
hereafter. 

But, passing over these matters of comparatively 
minor importance, let us, with our pilgrims, enter 
the sacred edifice now appropriated to the immensely 
important object of gratifying the eye, and the ear, 
and the palate, the whole blended in the one great 
scheme of making money for a most religious and 
praiseworthy object. And here our author exhibits 
his highest powers ; his style assumes a phosphores- 
cence that glows like the axle-trees of Apollo's chariot, 
although a cynical critic might, perhaps, insinuate 
that it borders a little on what the Greeks are sup- 
posed to mean by the phrase PofipaorifcaX. The beau- 
ties of Flora and the loveliness of the female sex, 
which dazzled the eyes of the beholder as he entered 
the sacred building, reminded Mr. Pilgarlique of 
Eden and its rosy bowers, ere Eve had plucked the 
forbidden fruit. The Harlem belles reminded him of 
a lady whose dwelling-place was Endor ; and he ex- 
claimed, as involuntarily he turned from one to the 
other, each lovelier than the last, 

"Witchcraft has come again 1 " 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 457 



Whereupon it is not to be wondered at if Mrs. Pil- 
garlique " nudged" him and reminded him of his 
nuptial vows. But the manner in which the young 
ladies disposed of the commodities they had for sale, 
although it looked something like making a place of 
merchandise of a house built professedly for other 
purposes, was very delectable ; especially their skill 
in making change for any customer green enough to 
expect such a thing. Mr. Pilgarlique came to the 
sage conclusion that their arithmetical studies had 
been neglected. Addition they seemed to understand, 
but subtraction was out of the question ; however, 
the profits on the cakes, flowers, and other things dis- 
posed of were correspondingly increased, and thus 
the good cause for which the Festival was held was 
evidently promoted. 

We must confess that, plausible as are the argu- 
ments of our author, and we do not mean to say they 
are not as sound as they are plausible, we are not con- 
vinced of the propriety of holding similar festivals 
every week, much less of the wisdom, to say nothing of 
the piety, of holding them on Sunday afternoons. It 
is true they would apparently lessen the burden of 
raising money for Church improvements, and pro- 
mote sociability, and improve ministerial brethren in 
the art of off-hand and facetious speech-making, and 
perhaps increase and improve the popular taste for 
instrumental and vocal music — yet we hesitate ; we 
have some old-fashioned twinges that unaccountably 
trouble us, and render us as incapable of appreciating 
the soundest arguments in their favor, as a severe fit 
of the gout in the toe would render us incompetent 



458 



REVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



to judge of the beauty of a tight pair of boots, in 
which some hard-hearted son of Crispin might insist 
upon encasing our shanks. 

We cannot, however, do justice to the subject 
without quoting entire chapters from our author's 
pages, and as that might render our publishers liable 
to damages for infringing his copyright, we do the next 
best thing, and give the " contents" of a single chapter, 
as arranged by Mr. Pilgarlique himself. Surely it 
is not too much to invoke a little of the reader's imagin- 
ation after all that we have done for him in that line, 
and this synopsis will assist him wonderfully. 

" CHAPTER XXYII. 

11 Appearance of the Sacred Edifice as to its Exterior — Sensations on 
entering the Sanctuary — Meaning of Ecclesiastes v, 1 — Floral 
Embellishments: Lilacs, Snapdragons, Roses, Daffydowndillies — 
Whether Paul's Advice about Modest Apparel, and Shamefacedness, 
and Pearls, and Costly Array, applies to Young Ladies, or only to 
that Class which he calls ' Women ' — Feast of Reason — Witty Re- 
marks of the Rev. Mr. Burntumber — New Interpretation of First 
Corinthians xi, 22 — Dr. Cadaver called upon for a Speech — Ditto 
Mr. Gnashway, and Messrs. Tripe, Scammony, and Gamboge — 
Roars of Laughter — The Orator of the Evening — Mrs. Pilgarlique's 
Remarks on the Whiteness of his Linen and the Immensity of his 
Choker — Preparations for Spoon Exercise — Exhortation founded on 
the Apostolic Injunction, ' Let your Moderation,' etc. — In Honor 
preferring one another ' not applicable on occasions of this kind — 
Music: Old Hundred, and ' Old Dan Tucker,' 'Zip Coon,' 'Jordan 
is a Hard Road to Travel,' and 'Wait for the Wagon ' — Catharsis 
produced on Master Hamilton — Anxiety of his Grandmother — The 
Auction, illustrating John vi, 12 — Net Profits of the Affair — Pro- 
priety of increasing the frequency of similar Festivals — Objection 
that Strawberries are not always in season answered — Clambakes, 
Chowders, Oyster Suppers suggested — Propriety of holding them 
every Sunday — Objections — The Better the Day the Better the 
Deed — Afternoon Preaching dispensed with — Whatsoever things 
are lovely, etc." 



PILGARLIQUE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



459 



It is worthy of remark, that our author does not 
tell ns for the benefit of what particular denomina- 
tion this Festival was held. The reason for his 
silence is apparent. He is unwilling to provoke feel- 
ings of envy among the Churches of the village. 
The glory, we think, must belong to one of the sects 
known as evangelical, as we never heard of anything 
of the kind among the ignorant Roman Catholics, or 
the formal Puseyites. And this reminds us, that 
herein may be found an answer to the question so 
frequently discussed, and so seldom satisfactorily an- 
swered, Which sects may we safely call evangelical ? 
Or, in other words, which among them ought to be 
recognized as belonging to the Orthodox family ? 
How much simpler, easier, more direct, and more 
pertinent to ask, Do they hold Fairs and Festivals 
for money-making purposes in their places of public 
worship? than to inquire about their profession of 
faith, their creed, or the peculiar doctrines they in- 
culcate. We may be awfully deceived on these 
purely speculative points, for words are sometimes 
used in one sense and understood in another ; but on 
a plain matter of fact, like that submitted as the more 
suitable test-question, there may be given a categori- 
cal yes, or no, which will at once shut the gate against 
all intruders. We wish to be understood, however, 
that we do not pronounce an ex cathedra judgment 
on this point. It is one of those delicate ecclesiastical 
matters that even the great Oeestes, of weathercock 
notoriety, would submit to his bishop before promul- 
gating in the pages of his Review. We trust we are 
as modest as he is, and not having an opportunity to 



460 



KEVIEWS AND ESSAYS. 



consult any of the higher hierarchies, we leave the 
suggestion for their future consideration ; simply en- 
tering our caveat, that if, by common consent, this 
method of deciding who are and who are not evan- 
gelical shall be adopted, to us shall be awarded the 
credit of its origination. A decent respect for the 
opinions of posterity is all that actuates us in putting 
in this claim ; and, although it may be thought de- 
rogatory to our keenness of perception, we must, in 
all honesty, add that we are at a loss even to identify 
the Church relations of the Pilgarlique family. From 
some remarks of Mrs. Dowdenny's in the " Introduc- 
tion," we inferred that she must have belonged to the 
Independents when at home ; but what she may be 
now, or under what ecclesiastical flag her son-in-law 
and her beloved Creeshy now sail, it passes our critical 
acumen to discover. 

The journey homeward was less pregnant with inci- 
dents ; and although, if the mythical fervor was still 
strong upon us, we might favor the reader with inter- 
esting extracts, yet it has so far evaporated that of 
necessity we forbear. 

* 1 1 

THE END. 



